egor format specification

The purpose of this page is to have and discuss the current detailed specification for egor's internal representation.

Table of Contents

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• egor format as implemented
  • Base class
  • Additional attributes
  • Special columns
    • Top-level
    • Second-level
      • egor$.alts
      • egor$.aaties
  • Reserved names
• Current amendment proposal and plans

egor format as implemented

Base class

An egor object is a subclass of tibble (tbl_df, to be precise) with certain special-purpose columns and additional attributes.

Additional attributes

attr(egor, "ego.design") (required) is a survey.design or similar object containing information about how the egos were selected.

attr(egor, "alter.design") (required) is a list containing information about how the data about alters were collected. Currently, this includes:

• max (required): Maximum number of alters an ego was allowed to nominate. Set to +Inf if no limit.

Special columns

Top-level

egor$.alts (required) column contains a (possibly 0-row) tibble for each row in the egor object. These tibbles must have identical column number and names, and contain information about nominations.

egor$.aaties (optional) column contains a (possibly 0-row) tibble for each row in the egor object. These tibbles must have identical column number and names, and contain information about alter-alter nominations.

Second-level

egor$.alts

egor$.alts[[1]]$.altID (optional) column contains unique identifiers (numeric or character) of the nominations. This column is required if egor$.aaties is present.

egor$.aaties

egor$.aaties[[1]]$.srcID (required) column contains the alter identifier (that can be matched against egor$.alts[[1]]$.altID) of the tail of the alter-alter relation.

egor$.aaties[[1]]$.tgtID (required) column contains the alter identifier (that can be matched against egor$.alts[[1]]$.altID) of the head of the alter-alter relation.

Reserved names

In general, the end-user should not have persistent data columns whose names begin with a dot (.). This will help ensure that data columns will not accidentally mask variables when using non-standard evaluation like subset.egor() does. When using placeholder or ephemeral variables, the user should also be aware that the following have been reserved for egor's use:

• Top-level: .alts, .aaties, .egoRow
• Second-level: .alts$.altID, .alts$.altRow, .aaties$.srcID, .aaties$.tgtID, .aaties$.srcRow, .aaties$.tgtRow

Current amendment proposal and plans