On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 9:27 AM, Cecilia Carmo <cecilia.carmo at ua.pt> wrote: > It wasn't the merge command. It doesn't create the variable x3. > > Cecília > > How about: x$k3 <- with(x, unlist(tapply(k1, k1, seq_along))) y$k3 <- with(y, unlist(tapply(k1, k1, seq_along)))