Using attributes of `ftable` for extracting data

Question

I sometimes use the ftable function purely for its presentation of hierarchical categories. However, sometimes, when the table is large, I would like to further sub

Answer 1

Here's what I was able to sort of hack together, with some help from Axeman:

replace_empty_arguments <- function(a) {
  empty_symbols <- vapply(a, function(x) {
    is.symbol(x) && identical("", as.character(x)), 0)
  } 
  a[!!empty_symbols] <- 0
  lapply(a, eval)
}

`[.ftable` <- function (inftable, ...) {
  if (!class(inftable) %in% "ftable") stop("input is not an ftable")
  tblatr <- attributes(inftable)[c("row.vars", "col.vars")]
  valslist <- replace_empty_arguments(as.list(match.call()[-(1:2)]))
  x <- sapply(valslist, function(x) identical(x, 0))
  TAB <- as.table(inftable)
  valslist[x] <- dimnames(TAB)[x]
  temp <- as.matrix(expand.grid(valslist))
  out <- ftable(
    `dimnames<-`(`dim<-`(TAB[temp], lengths(valslist)), valslist),
    row.vars = seq_along(tblatr[["row.vars"]]),
    col.vars = seq_along(tblatr[["col.vars"]]) + length(tblatr[["row.vars"]]))
  names(attributes(out)[["row.vars"]]) <- names(tblatr[["row.vars"]])
  names(attributes(out)[["col.vars"]]) <- names(tblatr[["col.vars"]])
  out
}

Try it out with the examples from the question:

mytable[c("1st", "3rd"), , "Child", ]
##                    Survived No Yes
## Class Sex    Age                  
## 1st   Male   Child           0   5
##       Female Child           0   1
## 3rd   Male   Child          35  13
##       Female Child          17  14

mytable[c("1st", "3rd"), , , "No"]
##                    Survived  No
## Class Sex    Age               
## 1st   Male   Child            0
##              Adult          118
##       Female Child            0
##              Adult            4
## 3rd   Male   Child           35
##              Adult          387
##       Female Child           17
##              Adult           89

tab2[c("1st", "3rd"), , , ]
##              Age      Child     Adult    
##              Survived    No Yes    No Yes
## Class Sex                                
## 1st   Male                0   5   118  57
##       Female              0   1     4 140
## 3rd   Male               35  13   387  75
##       Female             17  14    89  76