The goal of the ptable package is to produce perturbation tables that can be used for applying noise to statistical tables.

This package is developed within the SGA Open source tools for perturbative confidentiality methods. The package is not yet tested or optimized but already contains the core-functionality to produce ptables for count data.

We have a first rough version with which interested users may play around. Feedback (via issues) with regards to bugs or features requests are very welcome as well as pull-requests.

The package can directly be installed from github using the devtools package which must be installed on your system

if (!require("devtools")) install.packages("devtools")
library(devtools)

# update all packages
update.packages(ask=FALSE)

# finally install the ptable package directly from github
devtools::install_github("sdcTools/ptable", dependencies=c("Depends","Imports"), force=TRUE, build_opts="--build-vignettes")

If you experience a timeout due to a proxy server while downloading, one can work around this issue by specifying the proxy-server using the hhtr package:

httr::set_config(use_proxy(url="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, port=yy))

To load the package ptable you have to call

## load the package
library(ptable)

## help for specifying the perturbation parameters
?pt_create_pParams

## help for producing the perturbation table
?pt_create_pTable

Once finished, the package will also contain a package vignette. The unfinished introduction vignette can be looked at using the following command:

pt_vignette()

For first time users and visual learners there is a GUI. The unfinished dashboard can be started using the following command:

ptable()

The download buttons (for downloading the ptable and the graphics) only works within a browser.

• Merge the two main functions pt_create_pParams(...) and pt_create_pTable(...) into one function
• Allow for special cases: extended parameter setting, i.e. improved row-wise parameter settings
• Add error codes
• Improved fifi_...-functions
• Add test environment
• Improve accuracy of ptable by means of digits-functionality
• Add generic functions in pt_methods.R, e.g. plot(…)

• minor updates (e.g. updated argument step)

• feature: ptables for magnitude tables
• new arguments in function pt_create_pParams(): icat, table, step, type
• updated arguments in function pt_create_pPtable(): argument type removed

• Prototype Version for Testing (Census)

• feature: new argument SDCtool of function pt_export(): either “TauArgus” or “SAS”
• feature: vignette and new function pt_vignette() to show it
• updated default for argument pstay in function pt_create_pParams()
• updated default for argument type in function pt_create_pTable()

• Prepared for prototype testing

• Some minor updates of graphic outputs (e.g. font sizes)
• Alternative allocation for abs implementation (argument type="abs2") (intended to replace actual argument type="abs" and will be removed afterwards)

• feature: graphic output of transition matrix fifi_plot(..., type="t") (first version)
• feature: graphic output of perturbation panel fifi_plot(..., type="p") (first version)

• Some updates of the dashboard (e.g. now diretly opens in webbrowser, download buttons)

• Updated live output of the main function pt_create_pTable(..., monitoring=FALSE, debugging=FALSE) (i.e., monitoring is for users, debugging for own purposes and will be removed in a stable version)
• Some first minor fixes of extended parameter setting (i.e. argument pstay)

• compatibility with R-package cellKey (type of ptable: ‘abs’/‘destatis’ formatted ptable)

• feature: new function pt_export() to export ptable (csv format used by tauargus)
• feature: new argument of function fifi_plot() in order to save graphical pdf output

• bugfixing: dashboard

• bugfixing: CRAN compatibility and minor fixes (e.g. depends)

• first uploaded version