data_to_wide(): disable arg values_fill, do not drop empty columns, allow select helpers

[strengejacke]

• No longer removes widened columns when these were NA only
• Remove values_fill argument, as this never worked as probably intended
• allow select-helpers for values_from
• validate input arguments

This one replaces #645

[etiennebacher]

All sound good to me, I hadn't noticed the different behavior from tidyr on filling missing values.

Instead of removing values_fill entirely, can you add a message explaining that the argument is defunct and that the user should handle missings on their own instead?

[strengejacke]

Haha, our internal select-helper only works when the variable is named select?

[strengejacke]

Ah, found the solution, via substitute.

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR revises the data_to_wide() function to remove the non-functional values_fill argument, preserve empty columns after widening, and add support for select-helpers in values_from.

• Remove defunct values_fill functionality and deprecate the argument
• Stop removing empty columns created during widening process to align with tidyr::pivot_wider() behavior
• Add select-helper support for values_from parameter with new ignore_case and regex arguments

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
R/data_to_wide.R	Core function updates: remove values_fill logic, add validation, implement select-helpers
man/data_to_wide.Rd	Update documentation to reflect argument changes and new functionality
tests/testthat/test-data_to_wide.R	Replace values_fill tests with deprecation tests, add validation and empty column preservation tests
NEWS.md	Document breaking changes and new features
DESCRIPTION	Version bump

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[strengejacke]

Most changed lines are actually Air-styler-stuff.

[etiennebacher]

Most changed lines are actually Air-styler-stuff.

Can you revert those? It makes the PR hard to review. I'd like to use Air everywhere in easystats, let's just discuss that in the easystats repo and then make a PR dedicated to that if we choose to use it.

[strengejacke]

Ok, done. Ready for review

[etiennebacher]

Thank you, LGTM overall, just a few small comments to address.

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 91.83%. Comparing base (9a624b1) to head (3e96518).
⚠️ Report is 22 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main     #646      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   91.73%   91.83%   +0.09%     
==========================================
  Files          76       76              
  Lines        6410     6476      +66     
==========================================
+ Hits         5880     5947      +67     
+ Misses        530      529       -1     

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