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Contributing to codebookr

Source: .github/CONTRIBUTING.md

Thank you for your interest in contributing to codebookr. Bug reports, documentation improvements, and pull requests are welcome.

Scope

codebookr creates codebooks that describe the shape and content of a data set as it is stored. Before proposing a new feature, please check that it fits within this scope:

  • In scope: Reporting what is in the data. For example, column attributes, value labels, counts and percentages of each observed value (including missing values), and summaries of the range and distribution of values.
  • Out of scope: Making analysis decisions on the user’s behalf. For example, deciding which values count as missing or valid, excluding rows from a denominator, recoding or collapsing categories, or computing statistics that depend on those choices.

As a rule of thumb, codebookr excludes missing values from a calculation only when the statistic cannot be computed otherwise (e.g., a mean). In those cases, the number of missing values is always reported alongside it.

If you’re unsure whether an idea fits, please open an issue to discuss it before writing code. That way nobody spends time on a pull request that falls outside the package’s scope.

Pull requests

  • Add or update tests in tests/testthat/ for any change in behavior.
  • If you change roxygen comments or function arguments, run devtools::document() so the files in man/ stay in sync.
  • Add a bullet to NEWS.md describing any user-facing change.
  • Make sure devtools::check() runs without errors or warnings.