[R] Manipulation

[Ista Zahn]

Hi Michael,

This can be accomplished using the basic extract and assign functions:

dat <- structure(list(Date = structure(1:10, .Label = c("10-01-01",
"10-01-02", "10-01-03", "10-01-04", "10-01-05", "10-01-06", "10-01-07",
"10-01-08", "10-01-09", "10-01-10"), class = "factor"), Waterhead = c(100,
105, 101, 99, 85, 200, 199, 195, 185, 170)), .Names = c("Date",
"Waterhead"), row.names = c(NA, -10L), class = "data.frame")

dat[1:5, "Waterhead"] <- dat[1:5, "Waterhead"] - 115

You may find it helpful to work through "An Introduction to R"
(http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html) and/or one or more of the
fine contributed introductory tutorials
(http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html).

Best,
Ista

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 3:49 PM, michael.hopgood <michael.hopgood at mrm.se> wrote:
>
> Dear R family,
> I am a relative newbie and have been dabbling with R for a little while.
> Simple things really, but my employers are beginning to see the benefits of
> using R instead of excel. We have a remote monitoring station measuring
> groundwater levels.  We download the  date as a .csv file and up until now,
> we have been using excel to analyse the data.  It’s been a hassle trying to
> wrestle with that damn program as my boss wants to do things that excel was
> never meant to do,  so I’ve convinced my boss to give R a chance.  It’s been
> a steep learning curve, but I’m fairly confident I can reduce the amount of
> labour involved in producing and improving the graphs we show our clients.
>
> The groundwater levels are measured by pressure sensors lowered into the
> monitoring wells.   After a certain time, the sensors were lowered further
> into the well, thus creating a disparity in the measurements.
>
> The data frame I import into R looks something like this:
> Date            Waterhead (mm)  Parameter 1 Paramater 2, etc.
> 10-01-01     100
> 10-01-02     105
> 10-01-03     101
> 10-01-04      99
> 10-01-05      85
> 10-01-06    200  # <- Sensor lowered#
> 10-01-07    199
> 10-01-08    195
> 10-01-09    185
> 10-01-10    170
>
> For example, on the 10-10-06, the sensor was lowered by 115 mm.
> When I download the csv file, I download the data from the beginning of the
> measurement period. I then need to adjust the height by 115 mm to account
> for the lowering of the parameter.  My question to you is how do I do that
> in R?
> I am after a formula or a manipulation that selects the first five
> measurements of a column in the data frame and adds a fixed amount.  This is
> something that is added everytime I download the csv file and import it into
> R so that when I display my data, it is based on the following data frame:
>
> Date            Waterhead (mm)
> 10-01-01     215
> 10-01-02     220
> 10-01-03     216
> 10-01-04      214
> 10-01-05      200
> 10-01-06    200
> 10-01-07    199
> 10-01-08    195
> 10-01-09    185
> 10-01-10    170
>
> In short, I want to select a fixed number of rows from my data frame, add a
> constant to the rows of one of the columns, and insert the new values into
> their respective rows without affecting the subsequent rows.  I hope I have
> produced a reproducible example, I have been searching high and low for a
> solution, but have come up against a brick wall. I feel I have read
> something that tackles this some time in the past, but can’t find it again.
> Thanks in advance!
>
> Sincerely,
> Michael Hopgood
> MRM Konsult AB
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Manipulation-tp3221260p3221260.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>



-- 
Ista Zahn
Graduate student
University of Rochester
Department of Clinical and Social Psychology
http://yourpsyche.org