A one-liner for generating random participant IDs
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On one of the Slacks I browse, someone asked how to de-identify a column of participant IDs. The original dataset was a wait list, so the ordering of IDs itself was a sensitive feature of the data and we need to scramble the order of IDs produced.
For example, suppose we have the following repeated measures dataset.
library(tidyverse)
data <- tibble::tribble(
~ participant, ~ timepoint, ~ score,
"DB", 1, 7,
"DB", 2, 8,
"DB", 3, 8,
"TW", 1, NA,
"TW", 2, 9,
"CF", 1, 9,
"CF", 2, 8,
"JH", 1, 10,
"JH", 2, 10,
"JH", 3, 10
)
We want to map the participant identifiers onto some sort of
shuffled-up random IDs. Suggestions included hashing the IDs with
digest:
# This approach cryptographically compresses the input into a short
# "digest". (It is not a random ID.)
data %>%
mutate(
participant = Vectorize(digest::sha1)(participant)
)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 ad61ec1247b2381922bec89483c3ce2fb67f98d9 1 7
#> 2 ad61ec1247b2381922bec89483c3ce2fb67f98d9 2 8
#> 3 ad61ec1247b2381922bec89483c3ce2fb67f98d9 3 8
#> 4 c080f9a87edc6d47f28185279fd8be068c566a37 1 NA
#> 5 c080f9a87edc6d47f28185279fd8be068c566a37 2 9
#> 6 1f9da22bf684761daec27326331c58b46502a25b 1 9
#> 7 1f9da22bf684761daec27326331c58b46502a25b 2 8
#> 8 627d211747438ae59690cea8f0a8d6adf666b974 1 10
#> 9 627d211747438ae59690cea8f0a8d6adf666b974 2 10
#> 10 627d211747438ae59690cea8f0a8d6adf666b974 3 10
But this approach seems like overkill, and hashing just transforms these IDs. We want to be rid of them completely.
The uuid package provides another approach:
data %>%
group_by(participant) %>%
mutate(
id = uuid::UUIDgenerate(use.time = FALSE)
) %>%
ungroup() %>%
select(-participant, participant = id) %>%
relocate(participant)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 384eabc6-01ef-4ffb-8e87-bc4c460532c7 1 7
#> 2 384eabc6-01ef-4ffb-8e87-bc4c460532c7 2 8
#> 3 384eabc6-01ef-4ffb-8e87-bc4c460532c7 3 8
#> 4 3f601a14-2c39-48ee-9536-0d5396be2839 1 NA
#> 5 3f601a14-2c39-48ee-9536-0d5396be2839 2 9
#> 6 02f888f9-eb05-40d9-a425-89d51a24cb81 1 9
#> 7 02f888f9-eb05-40d9-a425-89d51a24cb81 2 8
#> 8 c007112b-ecd2-4c3b-b186-0fc53504dd38 1 10
#> 9 c007112b-ecd2-4c3b-b186-0fc53504dd38 2 10
#> 10 c007112b-ecd2-4c3b-b186-0fc53504dd38 3 10
Again, these IDs seem excessive: Imagine plotting data with one participant per facet.
When I create blogposts for this site, I use a function to create a new
.Rmd file with the date and a random adjective-animal
phrase for a
placeholder (e.g., 2021-06-28-mild-capybara.Rmd). We could try that for
fun:
data %>%
group_by(participant) %>%
mutate(
id = ids::adjective_animal()
) %>%
ungroup() %>%
select(-participant, participant = id) %>%
relocate(participant)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 chrysoprase_bushsqueaker 1 7
#> 2 chrysoprase_bushsqueaker 2 8
#> 3 chrysoprase_bushsqueaker 3 8
#> 4 hideous_cheetah 1 NA
#> 5 hideous_cheetah 2 9
#> 6 powdery_siamang 1 9
#> 7 powdery_siamang 2 8
#> 8 ducal_hornshark 1 10
#> 9 ducal_hornshark 2 10
#> 10 ducal_hornshark 3 10
But that’s too whimsical (and something like hideous-cheetah seems
disrespectful for human subjects).
One user suggested forcats::fct_anon():
data %>%
mutate(
participant = participant %>%
as.factor() %>%
forcats::fct_anon(prefix = "p0")
)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <fct> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 p04 1 7
#> 2 p04 2 8
#> 3 p04 3 8
#> 4 p02 1 NA
#> 5 p02 2 9
#> 6 p03 1 9
#> 7 p03 2 8
#> 8 p01 1 10
#> 9 p01 2 10
#> 10 p01 3 10
This approach works wonderfully. The only wrinkle is that it requires converting our IDs to a factor in order to work.
Call me the match()-maker
My approach is a nice combination of base R functions:
data %>%
mutate(
participant = match(participant, sample(unique(participant)))
)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <int> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 3 1 7
#> 2 3 2 8
#> 3 3 3 8
#> 4 1 1 NA
#> 5 1 2 9
#> 6 2 1 9
#> 7 2 2 8
#> 8 4 1 10
#> 9 4 2 10
#> 10 4 3 10
match(x, table) returns the first
positions of the x elements in some vector table. What is the
position in the alphabet of the letters L and Q and L again?
match(c("L", "Q", "L"), LETTERS)
#> [1] 12 17 12
sample() shuffles the values in
the table so the order of elements is lost. The unique() is
optional. We could just sample(data$participant). Then the first
position of one of the IDs might be a number larger than 4:
shuffle <- sample(data$participant) shuffle #> [1] "CF" "JH" "TW" "JH" "DB" "DB" "DB" "JH" "CF" "TW" match(data$participant, shuffle) #> [1] 5 5 5 3 3 1 1 2 2 2
For more aesthetically pleasing names, and for names that will sort
correctly, we can zero-pad the results with
sprintf(). I am mostly
including this step so that I have it written down somewhere for my own
reference.
zero_pad <- function(xs, prefix = "", width = 0) {
# use widest element if bigger than `width`
width <- max(c(nchar(xs), width))
sprintf(paste0(prefix, "%0", width, "d"), xs)
}
data %>%
mutate(
participant = match(participant, sample(unique(participant))),
participant = zero_pad(participant, "p", 3)
)
#> # A tibble: 10 x 3
#> participant timepoint score
#> <chr> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 p003 1 7
#> 2 p003 2 8
#> 3 p003 3 8
#> 4 p004 1 NA
#> 5 p004 2 9
#> 6 p002 1 9
#> 7 p002 2 8
#> 8 p001 1 10
#> 9 p001 2 10
#> 10 p001 3 10
Bonus: match() %in% disguise
What happens when match() fails to find an x in the table? By
default, we get NA. But we can customize the results with the
nomatch argument.
match(c("7", "A", "L"), LETTERS)
#> [1] NA 1 12
match(c("7", "A", "L"), LETTERS, nomatch = -99)
#> [1] -99 1 12
match(c("7", "A", "L"), LETTERS, nomatch = 0)
#> [1] 0 1 12
If we do something like this last example, then we can check whether an
element in x has a match by checking for numbers greater than 0.
match(c("7", "A", "L"), LETTERS, nomatch = 0) > 0
#> [1] FALSE TRUE TRUE
And that is how the functions %in% and is.element() are implemented
behind the scenes:
c("7", "A", "L") %in% LETTERS
#> [1] FALSE TRUE TRUE
# The 0L means it's an integer number instead of floating point number
`%in%`
#> function (x, table)
#> match(x, table, nomatch = 0L) > 0L
#> <bytecode: 0x00000000146eef20>
#> <environment: namespace:base>
is.element(c("7", "A", "L"), LETTERS)
#> [1] FALSE TRUE TRUE
is.element
#> function (el, set)
#> match(el, set, 0L) > 0L
#> <bytecode: 0x000000001714f110>
#> <environment: namespace:base>
Last knitted on 2021-10-12. Source code on GitHub.1
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