Rename get for categorical values?

[bkamins]

No description provided.

[bkamins]

I wanted to discuss if we should keep get as a function name for accessing value wrapped in categorical value but I convinced myself that it is OK so I closed the issue.

[nalimilan]

I'm not a fan of get. It was chosen because that function existed for Nullable, but now that it's been removed we could find something else (like unwrap).

[ararslan]

Worth discussion, so reopening.

[bkamins]

Unwrap is OK for me (I would wait till the discussion around coalesce in Base settles so that we know what names are used for what there as unwrap was also mentioned in the discussions). I understand that we would keep the current functionality (i.e. that unwrapping a missing should throw an error).

[bkamins]

bump (if you prefer I can open a PR for this - but you probably have a better understanding of all the consequences of #310 to make this PR correctly)

[nalimilan]

I don't think #310 would have any consequences on this.

The difficulty is that using something other than get will make CategoricalArrays even less generic, unless we define that function e.g. in DataAPI. But I'm not sure other packages need a similar concept. Any ideas?

[bkamins]

I think it is the opposite: the concept of unwrapping is CategoricalArrays.jl specific.

CC the usual team: @pdeffebach @quinnj @oxinabox

[quinnj]

We currently define unwrap in Tables.jl for unwrapping DataValues. I'd be happy to move that to DataAPI and we could use that in CategoricalArrays. I agree that get isn't a great method for the functionality here.

[bkamins]

Ah - interesting. It would make sense. Though, looking at the implementation we would have to change the implementation a bit as now unwrap seems to be DataValues targetted only but at the same time there is no restriction on type of x.

[nalimilan]

Ah, yes, that would make sense.

[nalimilan]

Fixed by #328.