Stacking two data frame columns into a single separate data frame column in R - r

Question

I will present my question in two ways. First, requesting a solution for a task; and second, as a description of my overall objective (in case I am overthinking this and there is an easier solution).
1) Task Solution
Data context: each row contains four price variables (columns) representing (a) the price at which the respondent feels the product is too cheap; (b) the price that is perceived as a bargain; (c) the price that is perceived as expensive; (d) the price that is too expensive to purchase.
## mock data set
a<-c(1,5,3,4,5)
b<-c(6,6,5,6,8)
c<-c(7,8,8,10,9)
d<-c(8,10,9,11,12)
df<-as.data.frame(cbind(a,b,c,d))
## result
# a b c d
#1 1 6 7 8
#2 5 6 8 10
#3 3 5 8 9
#4 4 6 10 11
#5 5 8 9 12
Task Objective: The goal is to create a single column in a new data frame that lists all of the unique values contained in a, b, c, and d.
price
#1 1
#2 3
#3 4
#4 5
#5 6
...
#12 12
My initial thought was to use rbind() and unique()...
price<-rbind(df$a,df$b,df$c,df$d)
price<-unique(price)
...expecting that a, b, c and d would stack vertically.
[Pseudo illustration]
a[1]
a[2]
a[...]
a[n]
b[1]
b[2]
b[...]
b[n]
etc.
Instead, the "columns" are treated as rows and stacked horizontally.
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5
1 1 5 3 4 5
2 6 6 5 6 8
3 7 8 8 10 9
4 8 10 9 11 12
How may I stack a, b, c and d such that price consists of only one column ("V1") that contains all twenty responses? (The unique part I can handle separately afterwards).
2) Overall Objective: The Bigger Picture
Ultimately, I want to create a cumulative share of population for each price (too cheap, bargain, expensive, too expensive) at each price point (defined by the unique values described above). For example, what percentage of respondents felt $1 was too cheap, what percentage felt $3 or less was too cheap, etc.
The cumulative shares for bargain and expensive are later inverted to become not.bargain and not.expensive and the four vectors reside in a data frame like this:
buckets too.cheap not.bargain not.expensive too.expensive
1 0.01 to 0.50 0.000000000 1 1 0
2 0.51 to 1.00 0.000000000 1 1 0
3 1.01 to 1.50 0.000000000 1 1 0
4 1.51 to 2.00 0.000000000 1 1 0
5 2.01 to 2.50 0.001041667 1 1 0
6 2.51 to 3.00 0.001041667 1 1 0
...
from which I may plot something that looks like this:
Above, I accomplished my plotting objective using defined price buckets ($0.50 ranges) and the hist() function.
However, the intersections of these lines have meanings and I want to calculate the exact price at which any of the lines cross. This is difficult when the x-axis is defined by price range buckets instead of a specific value; hence the desire to switch to exact values and the need to generate the unique price variable.
[Postscript: This analysis is based on Peter Van Westendorp's Price Sensitivity Meter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Westendorp%27s_Price_Sensitivity_Meter) which has known practical limitations but is relevant in the context of my research which will explore consumer perceptions of value under different treatments rather than defining an actual real-world price. I mention this for two reasons 1) to provide greater insight into my objective in case another approach comes to mind, and 2) to keep the thread focused on the mechanics rather than whether or not the Price Sensitivity Meter should be used.]

Answer 1

We can unlist the data.frame to a vector and get the sorted unique elements
sort(unique(unlist(df)))
When we do an rbind, it creates a matrix and unique of matrix calls the unique.matrix
methods('unique')
#[1] unique.array unique.bibentry* unique.data.frame unique.data.table* unique.default unique.IDate* unique.ITime*
#[8] unique.matrix unique.numeric_version unique.POSIXlt unique.warnings
which loops through the rows as the default MARGIN is 1 and then looks for unique elements. Instead, if we use the 'price', either as.vector or c(price) converts into vector
sort(unique(c(price)))
#[1] 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
If we use unique.default
sort(unique.default(price))
#[1] 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12