Resolve Target Columns from Names or Regex

This utility function determines which columns from a data frame should be selected for downstream operations based on a user-supplied specification. The specification can be:

Usage

resolve_target_cols(df, target_cols)

Arguments

df

A data frame from which columns will be selected.

target_cols

A character vector of column names or a single regular expression string.

Value

A character vector of resolved column names present in df.

Details

• NULL: Selects all columns.

• A character vector of column names: Selects those columns explicitly.

• A single string with a regular expression: Selects all matching column names.

Examples

df <- data.frame(a = 1, b = 2, c_score = 3)
resolve_target_cols(df, NULL)         # returns all columns
#> [1] "a"       "b"       "c_score"
resolve_target_cols(df, "c_")         # regex match (returns "c_score")
#> [1] "c_score"
resolve_target_cols(df, c("a", "b"))  # exact names
#> [1] "a" "b"