The vecvec package allows you to create vectors of mixed classes. Mixed
type vectors are useful for data analysis packages as they allow
semantically similar classes (such as time or distributions) to be
stored within the same vector and operated upon efficiently with the
same functions. It works similarly to factor(), in which the values of
a vector (analogous to levels of a factor) are stored in the attributes.
This also allows for efficient computation when the values are
replicated, since operations apply to the unique values of the vector.
This package is intended for developers creating mixed type vector packages, and is unlikely useful for general data analysis (although I’d be curious if you find direct application of this tool, let me know how you use it).
You can install the stable version from CRAN:
install.packages("vecvec")You can install the development version of vecvec like so:
remotes::install_github("mitchelloharawild/vecvec")Use vecvec() to create a vecvec. Here we combine three vectors of
different types.
library(vecvec)
x <- vecvec(as.Date("2025-03-29"), as.POSIXct("2025-01-03 10:05:00"), rnorm(10))
x
#> <vecvec[12]>
#> [1] 2025-03-29 2025-01-03 10:05:00 1.262954285
#> [4] -0.326233361 1.329799263 1.272429321
#> [7] 0.414641434 -1.539950042 -0.928567035
#> [10] -0.294720447 -0.005767173 2.404653389Internally, the vectors are stored separately in the attributes.
str(x)
#> vecvec [1:12] 2025-03-29, 2025-01-03 10:05:00, 1.262954285, -0.326233361,...
#> @ v:List of 3
#> ..$ : Date[1:1], format: "2025-03-29"
#> ..$ : POSIXct[1:1], format: "2025-01-03 10:05:00"
#> ..$ : num [1:10] 1.263 -0.326 1.33 1.272 0.415 ...Operations apply to all vector types.
x + 1
#> <vecvec[12]>
#> [1] 2025-03-30 2025-01-03 10:05:01 2.26295428
#> [4] 0.67376664 2.32979926 2.27242932
#> [7] 1.41464143 -0.53995004 0.07143297
#> [10] 0.70527955 0.99423283 3.40465339When subsetting, unused values are dropped.
x[1]
#> <vecvec[1]>
#> [1] 2025-03-29
str(x[1])
#> vecvec [1:1] 2025-03-29
#> @ v:List of 1
#> ..$ : Date[1:1], format: "2025-03-29"When a vecvec is replicated, only the indexing is replicated.
str(rep(x, each = 10))
#> vecvec [1:120] 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29,...
#> @ v:List of 3
#> ..$ : Date[1:1], format: "2025-03-29"
#> ..$ : POSIXct[1:1], format: "2025-01-03 10:05:00"
#> ..$ : num [1:10] 1.263 -0.326 1.33 1.272 0.415 ...
str(x[c(1,1,1,3,2,2)])
#> vecvec [1:6] 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29, 2025-03-29, 1.262954285, 2025-01-03 ...
#> @ v:List of 3
#> ..$ : Date[1:1], format: "2025-03-29"
#> ..$ : num [1:10] 1.263 -0.326 1.33 1.272 0.415 ...
#> ..$ : POSIXct[1:1], format: "2025-01-03 10:05:00"The values in the attribute are unchanged, which allows for efficient computation since operations apply to the attributes (which are not replicated).
str(rep(x, each = 10) + 100)
#> vecvec [1:120] 2025-07-07, 2025-07-07, 2025-07-07, 2025-07-07, 2025-07-07,...
#> @ v:List of 3
#> ..$ : Date[1:1], format: "2025-07-07"
#> ..$ : POSIXct[1:1], format: "2025-01-03 10:06:40"
#> ..$ : num [1:10] 101.3 99.7 101.3 101.3 100.4 ...If the arguments is differ across replicated indices, the resulting vecvec is expanded
str(rep(x, each = 10) + 1:120)
#> vecvec [1:120] 2025-03-30, 2025-03-31, 2025-04-01, 2025-04-02, 2025-04-03,...
#> @ v:List of 3
#> ..$ : Date[1:10], format: "2025-03-30" "2025-03-31" ...
#> ..$ : POSIXct[1:10], format: "2025-01-03 10:05:11" "2025-01-03 10:05:12" ...
#> ..$ : num [1:100] 22.3 23.3 24.3 25.3 26.3 ...