Idea from the \href{https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/blob/ec1259af1bf13fc0c96a1d3f9e84d55d8106a9a4/R/like.R}{\code{like} function from the \code{data.table} package}, although altered as explained in \emph{Details}.
\item{x}{a character vector where matches are sought, or an object which can be coerced by \code{\link[=as.character]{as.character()}} to a character vector.}
\item{pattern}{a character vector containing regular expressions (or a \link{character} string for \code{fixed = TRUE}) to be matched in the given character vector. Coerced by \code{\link[=as.character]{as.character()}} to a character string if possible.}
Convenient wrapper around \code{\link[=grepl]{grepl()}} to match a pattern: \code{x \%like\% pattern}. It always returns a \code{\link{logical}} vector and is always case-insensitive (use \code{x \%like_case\% pattern} for case-sensitive matching). Also, \code{pattern} can be as long as \code{x} to compare items of each index in both vectors, or they both can have the same length to iterate over all cases.
\item Check if \code{pattern} is a valid regular expression and sets \code{fixed = TRUE} if not, to greatly improve speed (vectorised over \code{pattern})
\item Always use compatibility with Perl unless \code{fixed = TRUE}, to greatly improve speed
Using RStudio? The \verb{\%like\%}/\verb{\%unlike\%} functions can also be directly inserted in your code from the Addins menu and can have its own keyboard shortcut like \code{Shift+Ctrl+L} or \code{Shift+Cmd+L} (see menu \code{Tools} > \verb{Modify Keyboard Shortcuts...}). If you keep pressing your shortcut, the inserted text will be iterated over \verb{\%like\%} -> \verb{\%unlike\%} -> \verb{\%like_case\%} -> \verb{\%unlike_case\%}.
The \link[=lifecycle]{lifecycle} of this function is \strong{stable}. In a stable function, major changes are unlikely. This means that the unlying code will generally evolve by adding new arguments; removing arguments or changing the meaning of existing arguments will be avoided.
If the unlying code needs breaking changes, they will occur gradually. For example, a argument will be deprecated and first continue to work, but will emit an message informing you of the change. Next, typically after at least one newly released version on CRAN, the message will be transformed to an error.
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