qol 1.3.2 - CRAN release

This update brings some long needed optimization, a bunch of bug fixes and some new functionalities. Some of the highlights are shown here in a bit more detail: https://s3rdia.github.io/qol_blog/posts/11.%20Update%201.3.2/

Be aware: The new percentile behavior is not were it should be as of right now performance wise. It is more like a first iteration, so it will only really work if used with few grouping variables.

New functions

• code_statistics(): Reads in a folder or entire folder structure, grabs all R script files, scans the contents for different patterns and outputs a small report. (04.06.2026)

Renamed functions

• retain_stat(): retain_sum got a new name because it can now generate any statistic not only sums with the new statistics parameter. (11.06.2026)
• set_labels(), get_labels(): The global setters and getters for variable and statistic labels set_variable_labels(), get_variable_labels() and set_stat_labels(), get_stat_labels() have been put together in one function. (12.06.2026)

New functionality

• running_number(): With the new sort parameter a vektor of variable names can be passed as by, which then is automatically sorted before generating the running number. There is also a new group_nr parameter which creates a running number for each group as a whole instead of a running number within the group. (26.05.2026)
• concat(): Can now concatenate variables inside a data frame with a separator. (03.06.2026)
• recode_multi(): New convert parameter converts recoded variables to numeric or character depending on the input format instead of leaving them as factors. (03.06.2026)
• any_table(), excel_output_style(): Can now apply a background_color to all cells which aren't covered by any other background color parameter. (03.06.2026)
• frequencies(): The number format option sum_decimals within the excel_output_style() function can now be used to set the decimal places in text outputs as well. (04.06.2026)
• libname(): With the new recursive parameter files can now also be retreived from subfolders. (04.06.2026)
• export_with_style(): Can now apply a background_color to all cells which aren't covered by any other background color parameter. (11.06.2026)
• export_with_style(): Added a new column_align parameter with which every column alignment can be controlled individually. (11.06.2026)

Changed functionality

• compute.(): Now handles calls sequential, so that a new variable generated within compute.() can directly be accesses and used within the same compute.() call. (13.06.2026)
• compute.(): In a do over loop, if different values are assigned to the same variable, then now the last value is assigned instead of the first. (16.06.2026)
• summarise_plus(): Percentiles are now calculated the SAS way, which is Type 2 described in quantile(). (16.06.2026)

Fixed

• if.(), else_if.(), else.(): Do over loop couldn't handle logical vectors. Additionally character expresions where always converted to symbols, which was fine if variable names were meant, but crashed if actual character values were passed. This is fixed now. (01.06.2026)
• print_step(): Doesn't print empty lines anymore, when surrounding the function with suppressMessages(). (01.06.2026)
• sort_plus(): Doesn't crash anymore when trying to preserve factor variables. (03.06.2026)
• export_data(): When exporting a csv file characters like ä, ö, ü are displayed correctly, when opening the file in Excel. (03.06.2026)
• libname(): When using the extensions parameter then now only files with these extensions are printed out to the console. Otherwise a NOTE is displayed stating that no file has been found. (04.06.2026)
• if.(), else_if.(): If a colon ":" was written somewhere in a character expression inside a condition the function crashed because it was looking for the return value of the special ":" symbol. This is fixed now. (09.06.2026)
• export_with_style(): Function doesn't crash anymore, if a variable label is provided, but the corresponding variable doesn't exist in the data frame. (11.06.2026)
• dummy_data(): Variable number_of_persons now has the right values. Before it was generated too early. (11.06.2026)
• compute.(), if.(), else_if.(), else.(): If do-over-loop behavior is combined with normal variable generation, then the do over loop now doesn't run for the normal variable generation and condition set up anymore. (13.06.2026)
• any_table(): The statistic freq_g0 couldn't be renamed correctly. It can now be renamed by just doing stat_labels = list("freq" = "Some label"). (15.06.2026)
• if.(), else_if.(), else.(): If the variable to which a value should be assigned already existed in the data frame, then the existing values were overwritten with NA, if there were NA values in a variable that was used in the condition. Values are now preserved. (16.06.2026)

Optimization

• if.(): Got rid of an unnecessary loop. (13.06.2026)
• print_step(), print_start_message(), print_headline(), print_closing(): Execution token is now only retrieved, if the print function is called from a low depth. Meaning deeply nested print statements wont retrieve the token because this becomes very resource heavy. (13.06.2026)
• summarise_plus(): Tackled a performance nightmare in the core summarisation function. Basically every statistic operation is now up to 10+ times faster than before and uses less than half the memory. This also has an impact on all the tabulation functions. (14.06.2026)
• any_table(): The cell merging for the column and row headers was handled range by range, meaning a merge per range. Now the ranges to be merged are collected first and then merged in one go. This gives a massive performance gain for larger tables. (15.06.2026)

Additionally

• if.(), export_with_style(): Updated examples. (19.05.2026)
• summarise_plus(), drop_type_vars(): Updated documentation with a detailed description of the automatically generated variables TYPE, TYPE_NR and DEPTH when using the nesting = "all" or nesting = "single" option. (27.05.2026, thanks to @cyklee)
• expand_formats(): Added a NOTEmessage if the cartesian product produces over 1 million rows. (02.06.2026)
• any_table(): Added two new NOTE messages in case pct_value or pct_block is specified in statistics put corresponding parameter isn't set. In this case the statistic will be removed. (08.06.2026)
• export_with_style(): Added some more messages informing the user about the formatting timings. (11.06.2026)
• Global options documentation received some more comments. Additionally the functions themselves received some messages stating whether options have been set. Also the getters which retrieve a list have a nicer output. (12.06.2026)