list_select Function Implementation

[rsh52]

Description

This PR introduced a very low-level function that we've found useful in working with the CGTTrialsReporter. A typical workflow we found was to use extract_tibbles() on a REDCap supertibble and then select specific named elements from that list output for our analytic objects. This has the additional benefit

A typical workflow, as documented in the roxygen example, is:

my_list <- extract_tibbles(superheroes_supertbl)
list_select(my_list, starts_with("hero"))

Open to name and param suggestions, additional checks, behavior modifications, etc. I originally wanted to call this supertibble_select(), but this doesn't really select from the supertibble. If anything extract_tibbles() already achieves this.

Currently if users make a tidyselection and nothing is returned, an empty named list is returned. But if they hard code a table to search for and it doesn't exist and helpful error is returned. Wasn't sure if both should error instead.

Proposed Changes

List changes below in bullet format:

• Introduce list_select() function
• Add tests
• Add to pkgdown

PR Checklist

Before submitting this PR, please check and verify below that the submission meets the below criteria:

• New/revised functions have associated tests
• [NA] New/revised functions that update downstream outputs have associated static testing files (.RDS) updated under inst/testdata/create_test_data.R
• New/revised functions use appropriate naming conventions
• New/revised functions don't repeat code
• Code changes are less than 250 lines total
• [NA] Issues linked to the PR using GitHub's list of keywords
• The appropriate reviewer is assigned to the PR
• The appropriate developers are assigned to the PR
• Pre-release package version incremented using usethis::use_version()

Code Review

This section to be used by the reviewer and developers during Code Review after PR submission

Code Review Checklist

• I checked that new files follow naming conventions and are in the right place
• I checked that documentation is complete, clear, and without typos
• I added/edited comments to explain "why" not "how"
• I checked that all new variable and function names follow naming conventions
• I checked that new tests have been written for key business logic and/or bugs that this PR fixes
• I checked that new tests address important edge cases

[ezraporter]

Code is obviously fine! My comments are about the API.

Internally we've used a list_select-like function because we've tended to start with:

data_all <- extract_tibbles(supertbl)

Is that really what we want users to do? What's the point of this intermediate named list object when you can just do:

extract_tibbles(supertbl, starts_with("tbl"))

It feels to me like we should just be encouraging users to do operations on the supertibble.

[rsh52]

Yea, fair enough. Personally fine with closing this if we don't think the value is really there, it didn't take much time to put together.

[ezraporter]

Yeah my opinion is that the value isn't there for this but there is value in a more comprehensive set of functions that allows you to select from and manipulate the supertibble

[rsh52]

Say no more 🫡