Bug fixes in the append to variable metadata function

[N-thony]

Fixes #9208
Fixes #9209
Fixes #9211
@rdstern this fixes the bug when trying to convert a column or importing the efc data and also the one in calculate_summary. Have a look.

[rdstern]

@N-thony in preparation I wanted to check that I do get this problem in the merged version now. (Because I didn't before updating to R 4.4.1.) I do get it, so I can't now import efc, until your bug fix.

I notice, at the same time, there are still packages missing from the merged version. In particular I had to add sjlabelled earlier today. And sjmisc, sjplot, etc are not yet there.

In the set of packages with datasets the last one in the alphabetical list is tidyr. In version 0.8 there are 20 packages after that. So we are missing a lot!

[rdstern]

@N-thony well done. That's a relief. @Patowhiz can you approve and merge.

[N-thony]

@N-thony in preparation I wanted to check that I do get this problem in the merged version now. (Because I didn't before updating to R 4.4.1.) I do get it, so I can't now import efc, until your bug fix.

I notice, at the same time, there are still packages missing from the merged version. In particular I had to add sjlabelled earlier today. And sjmisc, sjplot, etc are not yet there.

In the set of packages with datasets the last one in the alphabetical list is tidyr. In version 0.8 there are 20 packages after that. So we are missing a lot!

@rdstern I'm still investigating but I found in the code, we were still targeting packages from version 4.1.0, this need to change to 4.4.1 so that we can generate the appropriates packages versions to install for R 4.4.1

[Patowhiz]

@rdstern this is quite advanced R changes on functions used by different data book R functions. Considering @lilyclements has been looking at documenting the data book and summary R functions, I recommend her to review and approve.

I'm happy to merge but I can't reliably check what other areas may be affected.

[lilyclements]

@Patowhiz thanks. I am not sure myself what other areas would be affected, but I've done some testing and the code changes look sensible to me. @N-thony happy to approve