schematic makes it easy to validate a data.frame against a schema. It’s designed to provide clear and expressive error messages that help users understand and fix data issues.

Key features of schematic include:

✅ Declarative schema definitions using tidyselect syntax

💬 User-friendly error messages designed for use in Shiny apps and APIs

📋 Comprehensive reporting of all schema violations, not just the first

🪶 Lightweight and dependency-conscious—minimal overhead, easy to integrate

Use schematic when you want flexible and expressive schema validation, especially in contexts where informative feedback matters—like a Shiny app, a plumber endpoint, or any tool that consumes user-submitted data (e.g., .csv uploads).

Installation

schematic can be installed from CRAN:

install.packages("schematic")

Or try out the development version:

remotes::install_github("https://github.com/whipson/schematic")

Basics

Use schema() to create a Schema. Names and tidyselect expressions on the left of the tilde (LHS) correspond to column names and expressions on the right (RHS) are predicate functions that return TRUE or FALSE.

library(schematic)
# Test data.frame with some errors sprinkled in
my_df <- data.frame(
  ints = 1L:5L,
  num1 = rnorm(5),
  num2 = rpois(1, 5),
  fct1 = letters[1:5],
  another_fct = letters[6:10],
  times = "2025-04-09"
)
my_schema <- schema(
  ints ~ is.integer,
  starts_with("num") ~ is.numeric,
  c(fct1, another_fct) ~ is.factor,
  times ~ function(x) inherits(x, "POSIXct"),
  c(some_import_col) ~ is.numeric
)

check_schema() returns an informative error including the names of the columns that failed the schema and the reason that they failed.

check_schema(
  my_df,
  my_schema
)

Error:
! Schema Error:
- Column `some_import_col` missing from data
- Columns `fct1` and `another_fct` failed check `is.factor`
- Column `times` failed check `function(x) inherits(x, "POSIXct")`

You can also supply argument names in schema() to customize the output of the message. This is particularly helpful when you want to present a user with an informative message such as in a Shiny app.

my_schema <- schema(
  `is a whole number` = my_int ~ is.integer
)
my_df <- data.frame(
  my_int = c(-1, 2, 0.4)
)
check_schema(my_df, my_schema)

Error:
! Schema Error:
- Column `my_int` failed check `is a whole number`