Wrap strings to a specific width with hyphenation while preserving indentation

str_indent_wrap() leverages stringr::str_wrap() under the hood, but takes some extra steps to preserve any indentation that has been applied to a character element, and use hyphenated wrapping of single words that run longer than the allotted wrapping width.

Usage

str_indent_wrap(x, width = 10, tab_width = 5)

Arguments

x: An input character vector
width: The desired width of elements within the output character vector
tab_width: The number of spaces to which tabs should be converted

Value

A character vector with string wrapping applied

Details

The function stringr::str_wrap() is highly efficient, but in the context of table creation there are two select features missing - hyphenation for long running strings that overflow width, and respect for pre-indentation of a character element. For example, in an adverse event table, you may have body system rows as an un-indented column, and preferred terms as indented columns. These strings may run long and require wrapping to not surpass the column width. Furthermore, for crowded tables a single word may be longer than the column width itself.

This function takes steps to resolve these two issues, while trying to minimize additional overhead required to apply the wrapping of strings.

Note: This function automatically converts tabs to spaces. Tab width varies depending on font, so width cannot automatically be determined within a data frame. As such, users can specify the width

Examples

ex_text1 <- c("RENAL AND URINARY DISORDERS", "   NEPHROLITHIASIS")
ex_text2 <- c("RENAL AND URINARY DISORDERS", "\tNEPHROLITHIASIS")

cat(paste(str_indent_wrap(ex_text1, width=8), collapse="\n\n"),"\n")
#> RENAL
#> AND
#> URINARY
#> DISORDE-
#> RS
#> 
#>    NEPHROL-
#>    ITHIASI-
#>    S 
cat(paste(str_indent_wrap(ex_text2, tab_width=4), collapse="\n\n"),"\n")
#> RENAL AND
#> URINARY
#> DISORDERS
#> 
#>     NEPHROLIT-
#>     HIASIS