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Complete Panel Data by Identifier and Reference Dates

complete_dates.Rd

Expands a dataset to include all combinations of identifiers and reference dates within a specified start–end range. This is useful for ensuring that each identifier has a record for every time point, even if data are missing.

Usage

complete_dates(data, id_col, start_date, end_date, freq = "year")

Arguments

data

A data.frame or data.table containing at least an identifier column.

id_col

Character. Name of the identifier column (e.g., `"personnel_id"`).

start_date

Character or Date. Start of the full date sequence (e.g., `"2007-09-01"`).

end_date

Character or Date. End of the full date sequence (e.g., `"2018-01-01"`).

freq

Character. Interval for date sequence passed to seq.Date(by = ...). Default is `"year"`.

Value

A data.table containing all possible combinations of identifiers and reference dates between the given start and end points, merged with the original data.

Details

This function generates a complete identifier–date grid using seq.Date() between start_date and end_date, then merges it with the original dataset using a left join (all.x = TRUE).

Examples

if (FALSE) { # \dontrun{
complete_dt <- complete_dates(
  data = personnel_df,
  id_col = "personnel_id",
  start_date = "2007-09-01",
  end_date = "2018-01-01",
  freq = "year"
)
} # }