and

and constructs language-aware lists in R. It extends the functionality of functions like knitr::combine_words() and glue::glue_collapse() to make and-separated and or-separated lists that automatically conform to the user’s R language settings.

Installation

You can install the released version of and from CRAN with:

install.packages("and")

or the development version of and from GitHub with:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pkg_install("rossellhayes/and")

Usage

and() creates “and”-separated lists from vectors.

names <- c("John", "Paul", "George", "Ringo")
and(names)
#> [1] "John, Paul, George, and Ringo"

But the Oxford comma is less common in other varieties of English, what happens if I change my R language to British English?

Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "en_GB")
and(names)
#> [1] "John, Paul, George and Ringo"

What about other languages?

Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "es")
and(names)
#> [1] "John, Paul, George y Ringo"

Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "eu")
and(names)
#> [1] "John, Paul, George eta Ringo"

Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "ko")
and(names)
#> [1] "John, Paul, George 및 Ringo"

Handling the nuances

Creating a list is not as simple as putting a different word between the last two items. For example, in Spanish, the word for and changes if the next word starts with an ⟨i⟩ or ⟨y⟩:

princess_bride <- c("Vizzini", "Fezzik", "Inigo Montoya")
Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "es")
and(princess_bride)
#> [1] "Vizzini, Fezzik e Inigo Montoya"

or-separated lists

Everything and() can do or() can do better. Just use or() to create or-separated lists with all the same contextual awareness.

outcomes <- c("win", "lose", "draw")
Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "en_US")
or(outcomes)
#> [1] "win, lose, or draw"

Sys.setenv(LANGUAGE = "ja")
or(outcomes)
#> [1] "win、lose、またはdraw"

Hardcoding language

Don’t want the language of you string to depend on the user’s environment variables? You can explicitly set the language using the language argument.

and(names, language = "en_US")
#> [1] "John, Paul, George, and Ringo"

and(names, language = "en_GB")
#> [1] "John, Paul, George and Ringo"

and(names, language = "es")
#> [1] "John, Paul, George y Ringo"

and(names, language = "fr")
#> [1] "John, Paul, George et Ringo"

Languages

Fully supported languages

* The following English variants use no Oxford comma: AG, AI, AT, AU, BB, BE, BM, BS, BW, BZ, CA, CC, CH, CK, CM, CX, CY, DE, DG, DK, DM, ER, FI, FJ, FK, FM, GB, GD, GG, GH, GI, GM, GY, HK, ID, IE, IL, IM, IN, IO, JE, JM, KE, KI, KN, KY, LC, LR, LS, MG, MO, MS, MT, MU, MV, MW, MY, NA, NF, NG, NL, NR, NU, NZ, PG, PK, PN, PW, RW, SB, SC, SD, SE, SG, SH, SI, SL, SS, SX, SZ, TC, TK, TO, TT, TV, TZ, UG, VC, VG, VU, WS, ZA, ZM, and ZW.

Partially supported languages

Partially supported languages generally localize and() but not or().

Hex sticker image by Flavia Rossell Hayes.

Please note that and is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.