FAQ - Glossary

[DavisVaughan]

From https://github.com/r-lib/vctrs/pull/1243#discussion_r484722269

Define naming scheme conventions:

• "detect": A logical vector with the same size as x

• "locate": An integer vector of locations that can be supplied as a subscript to vec_slice().

  • Generally the same as which(vec_detect_*())

• "identify": An integer vector of identifiers the same size as x

This is somewhat dependent on having more functions that follow this naming scheme, as laid out in https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lSrVbq6CQICpX1IQcamyPEhkcw232Um9TLWEjV00Kfw/edit#gid=0

Other terms:

• "location" - An positive integer that can be used as a subscript in vec_slice()

• "identifier" - A positive integer label that serves to separate groups in a vector. Unlike a location, an identifier is not used as a subscript.

• "run" - A sequence of adjacent repeated values. A single vector can contain multiple runs.

[DavisVaughan]

It would be nice to have this in a single place that we could link to. For example, in documentation:

#' `vec_identify_runs()` returns a vector of [identifiers](faq-glossary)