Automatic conversion of tables to longform dataframes

Abstract

Table To Long Form automatically converts hierarchical Tables intended for a human reader into a simple LongForm dataframe that is machine readable, making it easier to access and use the data for analysis. It does this by recognising positional cues present in the hierarchical Table (which would normally be interpreted visually by the human brain) to decompose, then reconstruct the data into a LongForm dataframe. The article motivates the benefit of such a conversion with an example Table, followed by a short user manual, which includes a comparison between the simple one argument call to TableToLongForm, with code for an equivalent manual conversion. The article then explores the types of Tables the package can convert by providing a gallery of all recognised patterns. It finishes with a discussion of available diagnostic methods and future work.