'Unpivotr' provides tools for converting data from complex or irregular layouts to a columnar structure. For example, tables with multi-level column or row headers, or spreadsheets of several tables, nested HTML tables, and data that uses several different sentinel values.
The best way to learn unpivotr is the free online book Spreadsheet Munging Strategies.
Header and data cells can selected by their contents, position, data type and formatting, and can be associated with one other by their relative positions.
The input data must be a data frame with the columns 'row' and 'col' to describe the position of a 'cell' of data. For cells that are to be interpreted as data, further columns containing the 'value' of the cell are, of course, necessary for there to be any point in using this package, though they are not actually required for any of the given functions.
Data frames and HTML tables can be converted into a format meeting these
requirements by using the as_cells() function. Excel (.xlsx)
files can be imported directly into the required format with the 'tidyxl'
package, available at https://github.com/nacnudus/tidyxl, which has the
advantage that it retains cell formatting and comments.
Useful links:
Maintainer: Duncan Garmonsway nacnudus@gmail.com