How to Review Data in Tables and Variables

Displayr makes it easy to manipulate data in tables and variables, and there are quick ways to check that these manipulations were done as expected or to investigate what has changed in the data.

Method

Understanding merges and nets

When categories on a table are merged by dragging and dropping or by creating nets, their labels appear when you hover over the categories, as shown below.

Reviewing the input items, variables, weights, and filters

When viewing the object inspector settings for an item, you can hover over any input field or variable set to see metadata about them, and use the arrow button to jump to that specific item for further review:

Reviewing the Value Attributes

The Value Attributes of a question can be viewed on hover or by selecting the variable set in the Data Sources tree, and clicking Values or Select Categories in the object inspector.  The specific Value Attributes shown depend upon the Variable Set Structure, see Variable Sets for an overview of how to interpret and modify Value Attributes. You can hover over a Label or Value to see the original label/value in the raw data:

Interpreting a variable's name

The appearance of the Name of a variable in its object inspector can give you hints about how it was constructed. Variables that are found in the raw data are in grey and cannot be edited:

Whereas copies and other variables created in Displayr will have editable names not greyed out:

When variables are created in Displayr, their Names are edited by default in the following ways (note these Names can be edited later on to not follow these defaults):

• Categorization of the text data, in which case the default name will end with a _c (e.g. Q1_oe_c).
• Duplicating a variable set, in which case the variable name will end with an underscore and a numeral. For example, Q3_3 is the third version (and thus second exact copy) of a variable called Q3.
• Creating a new variable, by either creating a filter, creating a weight, or using a ready-made formula, where the resulting variable is, by default, a name that is a random combination of letters (e.g., bFAQJK). Where a new variable has been created, the prefix will, by default, indicate the method of construction. For example:
  • Filter Variables are prefixed by b.
  • A weight is prefixed by w.
  • A sum of variables, created using Mathematical Calculations, are prefixed by sum, etc.
• A custom JavaScript or R variable will be named newvariable, newvariable2, etc, but normally are renamed by users to be more sensical. 

Edit

Where a new variable has been created within the software by any means other than copying, the precise mechanics of how it has been created can be determined by the options in its object inspector, such as R Code, JavaScript Code, Edit Categorization, Edit Filter, etc.

Tracing dependencies

See Viewing Dependency Graphs to Understand Calculations on how to understand an item's inputs and dependencies. 

Searching for usage

Find Replace can be used to find any uses of data (e.g., to find all the tables or variables that are created using a specific variable).

Reviewing Rules

If a Rule has been applied to a table you will see it in the Data > Rules section in the object inspector , see How to Use Rules in Displayr for more info.

Revert to source

Right-clicking on a variable and selecting Reset > Variables returns the variables to the state they have in the original data file (i.e., undoing Combine on variables and any changes to the data). 

Deleted cases

You can see if any cases have been deleted on a data set by clicking on the data set name in the Data Sources tree and looking for the field Number of deleted cases:

This field is only present if there are deleted cases. You can click Restore deleted cases to undelete these cases if wanted.

Status

The color of the variables in the Data Sources tree identifies any variables that have either:

1. Red - been broken (e.g., due to a change in the data file structure)
2. Orange - there is a warning after validating the code or Displayr has made an educated guess on the value attributes

Next

Check Your Data

Identifying and Restoring Deleted Cases