Post-processing of full_join output to remove multiplicity - r

Question

I have two data frames(df1, df2) and performed full_join using the common column of interest col1.
df1 <- data.frame(col1=c('A','D','C','C','E','E','I'),col2=c(4,7,8,3,2,4,9))
df2 <- data.frame(col1=c('A','A','B','C','C','E','E','I'),col2=c(4,1,6,8,3,2,1,9))
df1 %>% full_join(df2, by = "col1")
# col1 col2.x col2.y
# 1 A 4 4
# 2 A 4 1
# 3 D 7 NA
# 4 C 8 8
# 5 C 8 3
# 6 C 3 8
# 7 C 3 3
# 8 E 2 2
# 9 E 2 1
# 10 E 4 2
# 11 E 4 1
# 12 I 9 9
# 13 B NA 6
As expected the full_join provides multiplicty of the joining column values and I wish to avoid it. I wish to arrive at the following output. What kind of post-processing approaches do you suggest?
# col1 col2.x col2.y
# 1 A 4 4
# 2 A NA 1
# 3 D 7 NA
# 4 C 8 8
# 5 C 3 3
# 6 E 2 2
# 7 E 4 1
# 8 I 9 9
# 9 B NA 6
More information:
Case 1: I do not need four rows in the output for two same values in both input objects:
# 4 C 8 8
# 5 C 8 3
# 6 C 3 8
# 7 C 3 3
instead, I want only two as:
# 4 C 8 8
# 5 C 3 3
Case 2: Similarly, I need same row for the difference in values:
# 8 E 2 2
# 9 E 2 1
# 10 E 4 2
# 11 E 4 1
instead, I want only two rows as below:
# 8 E 2 2
# 9 E 4 1

Answer 1

A possible solution in 2 steps using the data.table-package:
0) load package & convert to data.table's
library(data.table)
setDT(df1)
setDT(df2)
1) define helper function
unlistSD <- function(x) {
l <- length(x)
ls <- sapply(x, lengths)
m <- max(ls)
newSD <- vector(mode = "list", length = l)
for (i in 1:l) {
u <- unlist(x[[i]])
lu <- length(u)
if (lu < m) {
u <- c(u, rep(NA_real_, m - lu))
}
newSD[[i]] <- u
}
return(setNames(as.list(newSD), names(x)))
}
2) merge and apply helper function
merge(df1[, .(col2 = list(col2)), by = col1],
df2[, .(col2 = list(col2)), by = col1],
by = "col1", all = TRUE
)[, unlistSD(.SD), by = col1]
which gives the following result:
col1 col2.x col2.y
1: A 4 4
2: A NA 1
3: C 8 8
4: C 3 3
5: D 7 NA
6: E 2 2
7: E 4 1
8: I 9 9
9: B NA 6
Another possibiliy with base R:
unlistDF <- function(d, groupcols) {
ds <- split(d[, setdiff(names(d), groupcols)], d[,groupcols])
ls <- lapply(ds, function(x) max(sapply(x, lengths)))
dl <- lapply(ds, function(x) lapply(as.list(x), unlist))
du <- Map(function(x, y) {
lapply(x, function(i) {
if(length(i) < y) {
c(i, rep(NA_real_, y - length(i)))
} else i
})
}, x = dl, y = ls)
ld <- lapply(du, as.data.frame)
cbind(d[rep(1:nrow(d), ls), groupcols, drop = FALSE],
do.call(rbind.data.frame, c(ld, make.row.names = FALSE)),
row.names = NULL)
}
Now you can use this function as follows in combination with merge:
df <- merge(aggregate(col2 ~ col1, df1, as.list),
aggregate(col2 ~ col1, df2, as.list),
by = "col1", all = TRUE)
unlistDF(df, "col1")