Synthesize a data double

Creates a synthetic copy of a dataset using the specified specification and engine. The internal engine supports schema-only (Level 1) and marginal (Level 2) synthesis. The optional synthpop engine is used for objectives that request moderate or high relationship preservation.

Usage

synthesize_data(data, spec, roles = NULL, engine = NULL)

Arguments

data

A data frame to synthesize from.

spec

A dataganger_spec object from synth_spec().

roles

Optional; a dataganger_roles object from detect_roles(). Informs column treatment but does not override the spec.

engine

Character or NULL. Engine to use: "auto", "internal", "marginal" (alias for "internal"), or "synthpop". When NULL, defaults to spec$engine or derives from spec$preserve_correlations.

Value

An S3 object of class dataganger_synthetic, a tibble with attributes spec, original_dims, seed_used, and generated_at.

Disabling synthpop

Set options(dataganger.disable_synthpop = TRUE) to steer auto-derived synthesis onto the internal engine even when synthpop is installed. This is intended for environments where a synthpop synthesis is undesirable or can hang unattended (for example continuous integration). An explicit engine = "synthpop" request is still honoured; only objective-derived routing is affected.

Examples

dat <- data.frame(x = 1:5, y = letters[1:5])
spec <- synth_spec(purpose = "demo")
syn <- synthesize_data(dat, spec)