Create a data.frame that describes each field

describe.R

df <- data.frame(
  x1 = letters[1:10],
  x2 = 1:10,
  x3 = sample(c(TRUE, FALSE), 10, replace = TRUE),
  x4 = rnorm(10),
  x5 = as.factor(LETTERS[1:10]),
  stringsAsFactors = FALSE
)

describe <- function(x, class = TRUE) {
  
  # Todo: Investigate class/typeof, which should be the default?
  # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21125222
  
  # Message the user
  message("Write a concise description for each column in your dataset.")
  message("Note: You may type 'control + c' to end this process.")
  
  # Loop through the column names and prompt the user to describe each one
  user_input <- sapply(names(x), function(x) readline(prompt = paste0(x, ": ")))
  
  # Stack the result to go from wide to long
  input_stack <- stack(user_input)
  
  # Add the class/type variable, defaults to class
  ifelse(
    class, 
    input_stack$class <- sapply(x, class),
    input_stack$type <- sapply(x, typeof)
    )
  
  # Rename the variables
  names(input_stack) <- c("description", "variable", "class")
  
  # Return in my opinionated order
  input_stack[c("variable", "class", "description")]
  
}

describe(df)