Intelligently formats identifiers based on their detected type. For numeric
IDs that appear to be FIPS codes (1-5 digits), applies zero-padding to
5 digits. For other formats (alphanumeric, longer codes, etc.), converts
to character strings without modification.
Usage
format_ids_func(data_frame, id_col)
Arguments
- data_frame
Data frame to format
- id_col
Column name for the identifier column
Value
Data frame with formatted identifiers as character strings
Details
The function uses the following logic:
If all non-NA values are numeric and <= 99999, applies 5-digit
zero-padding (typical for county FIPS codes)
If values are already character strings or contain non-numeric
values, converts to character without modification
NA values are preserved as NA