Index a VR long-format dataset — vrc

Convert identifier columns to integer indices (1..R, 1..T, ...) used by Stan. This also creates a stable ordering of time values and optionally aggregates duplicate identifier rows.

Usage

vrc_index(
  data,
  t0 = NULL,
  id_cols = c("region", "time", "age", "sex", "cause"),
  y_col = "y",
  exposure_col = NULL,
  conflict_col = "conflict",
  duplicates = c("error", "sum"),
  sort_time = TRUE
)

Arguments

data: A data.frame.
t0: Conflict start time. May be an integer index in 1..T or a value present in data$time.
id_cols: Identifier columns. See vrc_validate_data().
y_col: Outcome column name.
exposure_col: Exposure column name. If NULL, uses exposure if present; otherwise uses pop.
conflict_col: Conflict column name.
duplicates: How to handle duplicates. One of "error" (default) or "sum".
sort_time: Logical. If TRUE (default), time values are sorted.

Value

A list with components:

data: the processed data.frame (including *_id integer columns and an exposure column)
meta: a list with levels and dimension sizes