[R] SQL vs R

David Winsemius dwinsemius at comcast.net
Mon May 5 23:43:44 CEST 2014


On May 5, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:

> I do not wish to prolong this metadiscussion but I remain confused
> by your advice:
> 
> 1) You don't understand what I asked (ie would have to parse two
> simple SQL statements)

Correct ... at least for me. I could have guessed at what that statement might have meant, but why should I need to guess? Why not use a shared naturallanguage rather than restricting your audience to the more limited group that understands both languages?

> 2) The Original Post is understood enough, however, to point me to
> the "Introduction to R" (where I have not found something to help
> me)

That means my guess would have been wrong, since like Jeff Newmiller, I thought a simple call to `table` would have succeeded. (Section 5.10 although the desire for ordering suggested by my guess regarding 

> 
> 3) My name is not Pete.

I'm actually not sure who Pete was. It's a local expression of astonishment directed, not at you, but at Satish. That was a prelude to my effort explain to Satish why the other respondents to the list have not seen fit to be more expansive in their responses. I thought Satish's comment was gratuitous (and likewise unhelpful).

> 
> If you don't want to help me, don't.

Several people are trying to help. You are remaining obdurate in failing to explain what is desired in natural language or posting an example in R code with desired output, as well as in failing to heed multiple other bits of advice in the Posting Guide. The accepted practice in responses is to include any context that might further the conversation. To my mind that would have required that you include the original request:

>>>> How do I do something like this without using sqldf?
>>>> 
>>>> a <- sqldf("SELECT COUNT(*) FROM b WHERE c = 'd'")
>>>> 
>>>> or
>>>> 
>>>> e <- sqldf("SELECT f, COUNT(*) FROM b GROUP BY f ORDER BY f")

How does the earlier suggestion to look at the 'table' function fail to address the first alternative? ( It appears it might satisfy the second one as well.)

-- 
David.


>  Nobody is forcing you to reply.
> 
> el
> 
> On 2014-05-04, 06:56 , David Winsemius wrote:
>> 
>> On May 3, 2014, at 9:10 PM, Satish Anupindi Rao wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> " By making the effort to learn R?"?  very constructive and not
>>> condescending at all.  We, lesser beings, are indebted to you,
>>> sir.
>> 
>> For Pete's sake.  The OP didn't even express his original request
>> in natural language or offer a working example.  Those of us who
>> are not regular SQL users would have needed to parse out the SQL
>> code in order to figure out what was intended.  (My guess is that
>> it would have been quite easy to solve if those were what were
>> offered.)  But making the effort to divine the intent didn't seem
>> justified by the level of courtesy offered by the questioner.
>> 
> 

David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA



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