Encode list-columns in a dataframe as character using base64 encoding

Encoded columns are detected, encoded with base64 and column names are appended with "__encoded" so that the decoder knows it. Other columns are not transformed

encodeListColumns(df)

Arguments

df	dataframe

Value

A dataframe where list-columns are encoded using base64 and those column names are appended by "__encoded"

Details

This is helpful in writing dataframes with list-columns to disk as delimited formats and read them back

Examples

library("magrittr")
trialDF <- tibble::tibble(x = 1:10
                          , y = c(list(list(iris)), as.list(2:10))
                          )
trialDF
#> # A tibble: 10 x 2
#>        x y         
#>    <int> <list>    
#>  1     1 <list [1]>
#>  2     2 <int [1]> 
#>  3     3 <int [1]> 
#>  4     4 <int [1]> 
#>  5     5 <int [1]> 
#>  6     6 <int [1]> 
#>  7     7 <int [1]> 
#>  8     8 <int [1]> 
#>  9     9 <int [1]> 
#> 10    10 <int [1]> 
trialDF %>% encodeListColumns()
#> # A tibble: 10 x 2
#>        x y__encoded                                                             
#>    <int> <chr>                                                                  
#>  1     1 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAATAAAAAQAAAxMAAAAFAAAADgAAAJZAFGZmZmZmZkATmZmZmZ…
#>  2     2 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAI=                                   
#>  3     3 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAM=                                   
#>  4     4 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAQ=                                   
#>  5     5 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAU=                                   
#>  6     6 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAY=                                   
#>  7     7 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAc=                                   
#>  8     8 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAg=                                   
#>  9     9 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAk=                                   
#> 10    10 WAoAAAACAAMFAQACAwAAAAANAAAAAQAAAAo=                                   
trialDF %>% encodeListColumns() %>% decodeListColumns()
#> # A tibble: 10 x 2
#>        x y                     
#>    <int> <list>                
#>  1     1 <data.frame [150 × 5]>
#>  2     2 <int [1]>             
#>  3     3 <int [1]>             
#>  4     4 <int [1]>             
#>  5     5 <int [1]>             
#>  6     6 <int [1]>             
#>  7     7 <int [1]>             
#>  8     8 <int [1]>             
#>  9     9 <int [1]>             
#> 10    10 <int [1]>