I often want to process one row of a data.table at a time. I've been using
d[, j, by=rownames(d)]
but this doesn't always seem to work (sometimes getting an error message about by appearing to evaluate to column names), and in any case isn't a very clean expression of what I'm trying to do.
Let me give a specific example.
d = data.table(a=c(1,2),b=c(3,4))
f = function(x,y) x[1]+y[1] #expects length 1 vectors x and y and adds them
d[, id := 1:.N]
d[, f(a,b), by=id]
d[, id := NULL]
The situation is that I have a function f that is not vectorized. I've decorated d with an id column so I can process one row at a time. I'm looking for a better way to do this.
Here's another example, without a function f:
d[, list(a=a,b=b,s=a:b), by = id]
d[, id := NULL]
This seems to do the job, following the example I found at https://arelbundock.com/posts/datatable_rowwise/
# Your example data frame and function
d = data.table(a = c(1, 2), b = c(3, 4))
f <- function(x, y) {x[1] + y[1]}
# Try the Map() function for row-wise operations
d[, z := Map(f, a, b)]
produces
#> a b z
#> 1: 1 3 4
#> 2: 2 4 6
Related
In other words, my question is about the j argument to data.table when the name of the new column is a character vector. For example:
dt <- data.table(x = c(1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3), y = rnorm(6))
agg_col_name <- 'avg'
grouped_dt <- dt[, .(z = mean(y)), by = x]
setnames(grouped_dt, 'z', agg_col_name)
> grouped_dt
x avg
1: 1 -0.2554987
2: 2 -0.4245852
3: 3 -0.4881073
There should be a more elegant way to do the last two statements as one, yes?
Perhaps this is a question about how to create suitable list for the j argument.
Although probably not what you are looking for, but you could use setNames inside, where it wraps around (.(z = mean(y)).
library(data.table)
dt[, setNames(.(z = mean(y)), agg_col_name), by = x]
Or use setnames after doing the summary:
setnames(dt[, mean(y), by = x], 'V1', agg_col_name)[]
Output
x avg
1: 1 0.5626526
2: 2 0.3549653
3: 3 -0.2861405
However, as mentioned in the comments, it is easier to do with the dev version of data.table. You can see more about the development of this feature at [programming on data.table #4304]:(https://github.com/Rdatatable/data.table/pull/4304).
# Latest development version:
data.table::update.dev.pkg()
library(data.table)
dt[, .(z = mean(y)), by = x, env = list(z=agg_col_name)]
# x avg
#1: 1 -0.1640783
#2: 2 0.5375794
#3: 3 0.1539785
So I'm new to data.table and don't understand now I can modify by reference at the same time that I perform an operation on chosen columns using the .SD symbol? I have two examples.
Example 1
> DT <- data.table("group1:1" = 1, "group1:2" = 1, "group2:1" = 1)
> DT
group1:1 group1:2 group2:1
1: 1 1 1
Let's say for example I simply to choose only columns which contain "group1:" in the name. I know it's pretty straightforward to just reassign the result of operation to the same object like so:
cols1 <- names(DT)[grep("group1:", names(DT))]
DT <- DT[, .SD, .SDcols = cols1]
From reading the data.table vignette on reference-semantics my understanding is that the above does not modify by reference, whereas a similar operation that would use the := would do so. Is this accurate? If that's correct Is there a better way to do this operation that does modify by reference? In trying to figure this out I got stuck on how to combine the .SD symbol and the := operator. I tried
DT[, c(cols1) := .SD, .SDcols = cols1]
DT[, c(cols1) := lapply(.SD,function(x)x), .SDcols = cols1]
neither of which gave the result I wanted.
Example 2
Say I want to perform a different operation dcast that uses .SD as input. Example data table:
> DT <- data.table(x = c(1,2,1,2), y = c("A","A","B","B"), z = 5:8)
> DT
x y z
1: 1 A 5
2: 2 A 6
3: 1 B 7
4: 2 B 8
Again, I know I can just reassign like so:
> DT <- dcast(DT, x ~ y, value.var = "z")
> DT
x A B
1: 1 5 7
2: 2 6 8
But don't understand why the following does not work (or whether it would be preferable in some circumstances):
> DT <- data.table(x = c(1,2,1,2), y = c("A","A","B","B"), z = 5:8)
> cols <- c("x", unique(DT$y))
> DT[, cols := dcast(.SD, x ~ y, value.var = "z")]
In your example,
cols1 <- names(DT)[grep("group1:", names(DT))]
DT[, c(cols1) := .SD, .SDcols = cols1] # not this
DT[, (cols1) := .SD, .SDcols = cols1] # this will work
Below is other example to set 0 values on numeric columns .SDcols by reference.
The trick is to assign column names vector before :=.
colnames = DT[, names(.SD), .SDcols = is.numeric] # column name vector
DT[, (colnames) := lapply(.SD, nafill, fill = 0), .SDcols= is.numeric]
How can we select multiple columns using a vector of their numeric indices (position) in data.table?
This is how we would do with a data.frame:
df <- data.frame(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
df[ , 2:3]
# b c
# 1 2 3
For versions of data.table >= 1.9.8, the following all just work:
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
# select single column by index
dt[, 2]
# b
# 1: 2
# select multiple columns by index
dt[, 2:3]
# b c
# 1: 2 3
# select single column by name
dt[, "a"]
# a
# 1: 1
# select multiple columns by name
dt[, c("a", "b")]
# a b
# 1: 1 2
For versions of data.table < 1.9.8 (for which numerical column selection required the use of with = FALSE), see this previous version of this answer. See also NEWS on v1.9.8, POTENTIALLY BREAKING CHANGES, point 3.
It's a bit verbose, but i've gotten used to using the hidden .SD variable.
b<-data.table(a=1,b=2,c=3,d=4)
b[,.SD,.SDcols=c(1:2)]
It's a bit of a hassle, but you don't lose out on other data.table features (I don't think), so you should still be able to use other important functions like join tables etc.
If you want to use column names to select the columns, simply use .(), which is an alias for list():
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a = 1:2, b = 2:3, c = 3:4)
dt[ , .(b, c)] # select the columns b and c
# Result:
# b c
# 1: 2 3
# 2: 3 4
From v1.10.2 onwards, you can also use ..
dt <- data.table(a=1:2, b=2:3, c=3:4)
keep_cols = c("a", "c")
dt[, ..keep_cols]
#Tom, thank you very much for pointing out this solution.
It works great for me.
I was looking for a way to just exclude one column from printing and from the example above. To exclude the second column you can do something like this
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a=1:2, b=2:3, c=3:4)
dt[,.SD,.SDcols=-2]
dt[,.SD,.SDcols=c(1,3)]
Suppose there is:
DT = data.table(a=1, b=2, "a+b"=8)
and there is variable col="a+b" referencing the third column of DT
How to perform an operation on that column by reference? Let's say I want multiply col by 2, so in the above example the result should be 8*2=16, not (1+2)*2=6
For example, this obviously doesn't work:
DT[, c:=as.name(col)*2]
It sounds like you're looking for get:
DT = data.table(a=1, b=2, "a+b"=8)
col = "a+b"
DT[, get(col) * 2]
# [1] 16
DT[, c := get(col) * 2]
DT
# a b a+b c
# 1: 1 2 8 16
How can we select multiple columns using a vector of their numeric indices (position) in data.table?
This is how we would do with a data.frame:
df <- data.frame(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
df[ , 2:3]
# b c
# 1 2 3
For versions of data.table >= 1.9.8, the following all just work:
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
# select single column by index
dt[, 2]
# b
# 1: 2
# select multiple columns by index
dt[, 2:3]
# b c
# 1: 2 3
# select single column by name
dt[, "a"]
# a
# 1: 1
# select multiple columns by name
dt[, c("a", "b")]
# a b
# 1: 1 2
For versions of data.table < 1.9.8 (for which numerical column selection required the use of with = FALSE), see this previous version of this answer. See also NEWS on v1.9.8, POTENTIALLY BREAKING CHANGES, point 3.
It's a bit verbose, but i've gotten used to using the hidden .SD variable.
b<-data.table(a=1,b=2,c=3,d=4)
b[,.SD,.SDcols=c(1:2)]
It's a bit of a hassle, but you don't lose out on other data.table features (I don't think), so you should still be able to use other important functions like join tables etc.
If you want to use column names to select the columns, simply use .(), which is an alias for list():
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a = 1:2, b = 2:3, c = 3:4)
dt[ , .(b, c)] # select the columns b and c
# Result:
# b c
# 1: 2 3
# 2: 3 4
From v1.10.2 onwards, you can also use ..
dt <- data.table(a=1:2, b=2:3, c=3:4)
keep_cols = c("a", "c")
dt[, ..keep_cols]
#Tom, thank you very much for pointing out this solution.
It works great for me.
I was looking for a way to just exclude one column from printing and from the example above. To exclude the second column you can do something like this
library(data.table)
dt <- data.table(a=1:2, b=2:3, c=3:4)
dt[,.SD,.SDcols=-2]
dt[,.SD,.SDcols=c(1,3)]