[R] looping using combinatorics

[Gabor Grothendieck]

I assume your question is given 3 vectors of the same length: a, b and c
how do we loop over pairs of them.  In the following each iteration displays
one pair:

   library(combinat)
   DF <- data.frame(a = 1:4, b = 5:8, c = 9:12)
   for(idx in as.data.frame(combn(3,2))) print(DF[,idx])

On 7/13/06, Jesse Albert Canchola <jesse.canchola.b at bayer.com> wrote:
> I have a problem where I need to loop over the total combinations of
> vectors (combined once chosen via combinatorics).  Here is a
> simplification of the problem:
>
> STEP 1:  Define three vectors a, b, c.
> STEP 2:  Combine all possible pairwise vectors (i.e., 3 choose 2 = 3
> possible pairs of vectors: ab,ac, bc)
> NOTE:  the actual problem has 8 choose 4, 8 choose 5 and 8 choose 6
> combinations.
> STEP 3:  Do the same math on each pairwise combination and spit out
> answers each time
>
> ####### BEGIN CODE #######
> #STEP 1
> a1 <- c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12)
> a <- matrix(a1,2,3,byrow=T)
> a
>
> b1 <- c(13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24)
> b <- matrix(b1,2,3,byrow=T)
> b
>
> c1 <- c(25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36)
> c <- matrix(b1,2,3,byrow=T)
> c
>
> # example:  combine the first two vectors "a" and "b"
> combab <- rbind(a,b)
>
> # the a,b combined data from the algorithm later below should look like
> # something like the following:
> combab
>
> # use the combinatorics "combn" function found in the "combinat" package
> on CRAN
> m <- combn(3,2) # three choose two combinations
> m
>
> # the first assignment below should be numeric and then subsequent
> # assignments as character since the first time you assign a number to
> # a character in a matrix the rest of the numbers in the matrix are
> coerced to character
> m[m==1]='a'; m[m=='2']='b'; m[m=='3']='c'
> m
>
> #STEP 2: combine pairwise vectors into a matrix or frame
> for (i in dim(m)[1])
>    for (j in dim(m)[2])
>        {
>            combined <-
> rbind(cat(format(m[i]),"\n"),cat(format(m[j]),"\n")) #cat/format removes
> the quotes
>            combined
>        }
> traceback()
>
>
> #STEP 3: {not there yet}
> ################# END CODE ################
>
> The problem is that in STEP 2 (not complete), the results in the rbind are
> not recognized as the objects they represent (i.e., the "a" without quotes
> is not recognized as the data object we defined in STEP 1.  Perhaps this
> is a parsing problem.  Perhaps there is an alterative way to do this.  I
> looked pretty long and hard in the CRAN libraries but alas, I am stuck.
> BTW, I picked up R about a month ago (I used primarily SAS, Stata and
> SPSS).
>
> Regards and TIA,
> Jesse
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Jesse A. Canchola
> Biostatistician III
> Bayer Healthcare
> 725 Potter St.
> Berkeley, CA 94710
> P: 510.705.5855
> F: 510.705.5718
> E: Jesse.Canchola.b at Bayer.Com
>
>
>
>
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