Create category based on keyword in R

Question

I have a dataframe containing two columns: 1st column is the keyword and 2nd is the associated category.

keywords <- c("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
categories <- c("category1", "category2", "category3")

lookup_table <- data.frame(keywords, categories)

I would like that each time I have a new label, I check whether there is a category corresponding to it and if so, attach the category.

So for the following example below, there would be the value 'category1' attached to the first row in a new column:

new_labels <- c("keyword1 qefjhqek", "hfaef", "fihiz")

Help much appreciated!

Answer 1

Here just use str_extract to get the relevant text and join the reference table.

keywords <- c("keyword1", "keyword2", "keyword3")
categories <- c("category1", "category2", "category3")

lookup_table <- data.frame(keywords, categories)
new_labels <- c("keyword1 qefjhqek", "hfaef", "fihiz")

library(data.table)
library(tidyverse)
ref_tbl <- 
# data.table(
# For the AntoniosK's sugguestion, recommend dplyr-like function.
tibble(
    keywords = keywords
    ,categories = categories
)

# as.data.table(
# For the AntoniosK's sugguestion, recommend dplyr-like function.
as_tibble(
    new_labels
    ) %>% 
    mutate(ref_key = str_extract(new_labels
                                 # ,'keyword[:digit:]'
                                 ,(
                                   keywords %>% 
                                     str_flatten('|')
                                   # regular expression
                                 )
                                 )) %>% 
    left_join(
         ref_tbl
         ,by=c('ref_key'='keywords')
    )
#> # A tibble: 3 x 3
#>   value             ref_key  categories
#>   <chr>             <chr>    <chr>     
#> 1 keyword1 qefjhqek keyword1 category1 
#> 2 hfaef             <NA>     <NA>      
#> 3 fihiz             <NA>     <NA>

^{Created on 2018-11-10 by the reprex package (v0.2.1)}

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From @AntoniosK's question, I do the comparison between data.table and tibble. And the fact is there is a significant sign supporting tibble is better than data.table.

1. tibble only 2990 ms -> 1st :
2. data.table and as.data.table 3240 ms -> 2nd :
3. data.table only 3840 ms -> 3rd :