R: operate over subset of columns in data.table - r

Question

I'm trying to implement a data.table for my relatively large datasets and I can't figure out how to operate a function over multiple columns in the same row. Specifically, I want to create a new column that contains a specifically-formatted tally of the values (i.e., a histogram) in a subset of columns. It is kind of like table() but that also includes 0 entries and is sorted--so, if you know of a better/faster method I'd appreciate that too!
Simplified test case:
DF<-data.frame("A"=c("a","d","a"),"B"=c("b","a","a"),"C"=c("c","a","a"),"D"=c("a","b","c"),"E"=c("a","a","c"))
DT<-as.data.table(DF)
> DT
A B C D E
1: a b c a a
2: d a a b a
3: a a a c c
my klunky histogram function:
histo<-function(vec){
foo<-c("a"=0,"b"=0,"c"=0,"d"=0)
for(i in vec){foo[i]=foo[i]+1}
return(foo)}
>histo(unname(unlist(DF[1,])))
a b c d
3 1 1 0
>histo(unname(unlist(DF[2,])))
a b c d
3 1 0 1
>histo(unname(unlist(DF[3,])))
a b c d
3 0 2 0
pseduocode of desired function and output
>DT[,his:=some_func_with_histo(A:E)]
>DT
A B C D E his
1: a b c a a (3,1,1,0)
2: d a a b a (3,1,0,1)
3: a a a c c (3,0,2,0)

Answer 1

df <- data.table(DF)
df$hist <- unlist(apply(df, 1, function(x) {
list(
sapply(letters[1:4], function(d) {
b <- sum(!is.na(grep(d,x)))
assign(d, b)
}))
}), recursive=FALSE)
Your df$hist column is a list, with each value named:
> df
A B C D E hist
1: a b c a a 3,1,2,0
2: d a a b a 3,1,1,1
3: a a a c c 3,0,3,0
> df$hist
[[1]]
a b c d
3 1 2 0
[[2]]
a b c d
3 1 1 1
[[3]]
a b c d
3 0 3 0

Answer 2

NOTE: Answer has been updated to to OP's request and mnel's comment
OK, how do you like that solution:
library(data.table)
DT <- data.table(A=c("a","d","a"),
B=c("b","a","a"),
C=c("c","a","a"),
D=c("a","b","c"),
E=c("a","a","c"))
fun <- function(vec, char) {
sum(vec==char)
}
DT[, Vec_Nr:= paste(Vectorize(fun, 'char')(.SD, letters[1:4]), collapse=","),
by=1:nrow(DT),
.SDcols=LETTERS[1:5]]
A B C D E Vec_Nr
1: a b c a a 3,1,1,0
2: d a a b a 3,1,0,1
3: a a a c c 3,0,2,0
I basically split up your problem into several steps:
First, I define a function fun that gives me the number of occurrences for one character. To see how
that function works, just call
fun(c("a", "a", "b"), "b")
[1] 1
Next, I vectorize this function because you don't want to know that for only one character "b", but for many. To pass a vector of arguments to a function,
use Vectorize. To see how that works, just type
Vectorize(fun, "char")(c("a", "a", "b"), c("a", "b"))
a b
2 1
Next, I collapse the results into one string and save that as a new column. Note that I deliberatly used the letters and LETTERS here to show you how make this more dynamic.

Answer 3

EDIT (also see below): Provided you first convert column classes to character, e.g., with DT <- DT[,lapply(.SD,as.character)]...
By using factor, you can convert vec and pass the values (a,b,c,d) in one step:
histo2 <- function(x) table(factor(x,levels=letters[1:4]))
Then you can iterate over rows by passing by=1:nrow(DT).
DT[,as.list(histo2(.SD)),by=1:nrow(DT)]
This gives...
nrow a b c d
1: 1 3 1 1 0
2: 2 3 1 0 1
3: 3 3 0 2 0
Also, this iterates over columns. This works because .SD is a special variable holding the subset of data associated with the call to by. In this case, that subset is the data.table consisting of one of the rows. histo2(DT[1]) works the same way.
EDIT (responding to OP's comment): Oh, sorry, I instinctively replaced your first line with
DF<-data.frame("A"=c("a","d","a"),"B"=c("b","a","a"),"C"=c("c","a","a"),"D"=c("a","b","c"),"E"=c("a","a","c")
,stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
since I dislike using factors except when making tables. If you do not want to convert your factor columns to character columns in this way, this will work:
histo3 <- function(x) table(factor(sapply(x,as.character),levels=letters[1:4]))
To put the output into a single column, you use := as you suggested...
DT[,hist:=list(list(histo3(.SD))),by=1:nrow(DT)]
The list(list()) part is key; I always figure this out by trial-and-error. Now DT looks like this:
A B C D E hist
1: a b c a a 3,1,1,0
2: d a a b a 3,1,0,1
3: a a a c c 3,0,2,0
You might find that it's a pain to access the information directly from your new column. For example, to access the "a" column of the "histogram", I think the fastest route is...
DT[,hist[[1]][["a"]],by=1:nrow(DT)]
My initial suggestion created an auxiliary data.table with just the counts. I think it's cleaner to do whatever you want to do with the counts in that data.table and then cbind it back. If you choose to store it in a column, you can always create the auxiliary data.table later with
DT[,as.list(hist[[1]]),by=1:nrow(DT)]
You are correct about using .SDcols. For your example, ...
cols = c("A","C")
histname = paste(c("hist",cols),collapse="")
DT[,(histname):=list(list(histo3(.SD))),by=1:nrow(DT),.SDcols=cols]
This gives
A B C D E hist histAC
1: a b c a a 3,1,1,0 1,0,1,0
2: d a a b a 3,1,0,1 1,0,0,1
3: a a a c c 3,0,2,0 2,0,0,0