Efficient dataframe iteration in R - r

Question

Suppose I have a a 5 million row data frame, with two columns, as such (this data frame only has ten rows for simplicity):
df <- data.frame(start=c(11,21,31,41,42,54,61,63), end=c(20,30,40,50,51,63,70,72))
I want to be able to produce the following numbers in a numeric vector:
11 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, 51, 54-63, 64-70, 71-72
And then take the length of the new vector (in this case, 10+10+10+10+1+10+7+2) = 60
*NOTE, I do not need the vector itself, just it's length will suffice. So if someone has a more intelligent logical approach to obtain the length, that is welcomed.
Essentially, what was done, was the for each row in the dataframe, the sequence from the start to end was taken, and all these sequences were combined, and then filtered for UNIQUE values.
So I used an approach as such:
length(unique(c(apply(df, 1, function(x) {
return(as.numeric(x[1]):as.numeric(x[2]))
}))))
which proves incredibly slow on my five million row data frame.
Any quicker more efficient solutions? Bonus, please try to add system time.
user system elapsed
19.946 0.620 20.477

Answer 1

This should work, assuming your data is sorted.
library(dplyr) # for the lag function
with(df, sum(end - pmax(start, lag(end, 1, default = 0)+1) + 1))
#[1] 60
library(microbenchmark)
microbenchmark(
beginneR={with(df, sum(end - pmax(start, lag(end, 1, default = 0)+1) + 1))},
r2evans={vec <- pmax(mm[,1], c(0,1+head(mm[,2],n=-1))); sum(mm[,2]-vec+1);},
times = 1000
)
Unit: microseconds
expr min lq median uq max neval
beginneR 37.398 41.4455 42.731 44.0795 74.349 1000
r2evans 31.788 35.2470 36.827 38.3925 9298.669 1000
So matrix is still faster, but not much (and the conversion step is still not included here). And I wonder why the max duration in #r2evans's answer is so high compared to all other values (which are really fast)

Answer 2

Another method:
mm <- as.matrix(df) ## critical for performance/scalability
(vec <- pmax(mm[,1], c(0,1+head(mm[,2],n=-1))))
## [1] 11 21 31 41 51 54 64 71
sum(mm[,2] - vec + 1)
## [1] 60
(This should scale reasonable well, certainly better than data.frames.)
Edit: after I updated my code to use matrices and no apply calls, I did a quick benchmark of my implementation compared with the other answer (which is also correct):
library(microbenchmark)
library(dplyr)
microbenchmark(
beginneR={
df <- data.frame(start=c(11,21,31,41,42,54,61,63),
end=c(20,30,40,50,51,63,70,72))
with(df, sum(end - pmax(start, lag(end, 1, default = 0)+1) + 1))
},
r2evans={
mm <- matrix(c(11,21,31,41,42,54,61,63,
20,30,40,50,51,63,70,72), nc=2)
vec <- pmax(mm[,1], c(0,1+head(mm[,2],n=-1)))
sum(mm[,2]-vec+1)
}
)
## Unit: microseconds
## expr min lq median uq max neval
## beginneR 230.410 238.297 244.9015 261.228 443.574 100
## r2evans 37.791 40.725 44.7620 47.880 147.124 100
This benefits greatly from the use of matrices instead of data.frames.
Oh, and system time is not that helpful here :-)
system.time({
mm <- matrix(c(11,21,31,41,42,54,61,63,
20,30,40,50,51,63,70,72), nc=2)
vec <- pmax(mm[,1], c(0,1+head(mm[,2],n=-1)))
sum(mm[,2]-vec+1)
})
## user system elapsed
## 0 0 0