[R] Help with reshape/reshape2 needed

[Ista Zahn]

The reason it doesn't work easily with reshape/reshape2 is that the
order of the rows is not determined. Your answer could be

     1957      1958 ...      1985       1986
0.8625000 0.7500000 ... 0.7307692 0.23750000
0.0733945 0.6435644 ...        NA 0.05769231
0.5096154        NA ...        NA 0.65137615

or

     1957      1958 ...      1985       1986
0.0733945 0.6435644 ...        NA 0.05769231
0.8625000 0.7500000 ... 0.7307692 0.23750000
0.5096154        NA ...        NA 0.65137615

or

     1957      1958 ...      1985       1986
0.8625000 0.6435644 ...        NA 0.23750000
0.0733945         NA    0.7307692 0.05769231
0.5096154 0.7500000 ...        NA 0.65137615

or any other combination of orders. You might not care about the
order, but reshape does.

The usual way around it is to just make up an order variable, e.g.,
assuming your data.frame is named "example_data" and the columns are
named "year" and "score":

example_data <- do.call(rbind,
                        lapply(split(example_data,
                                     example_data$year),
                               transform,
                               obs = seq_along(year)))

dcast(example_data,
      obs ~ year,
      value.var = "score")

Best,
Ista


On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 2:16 PM, Thomas Adams <tea3rd at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all:
>
> I'm struggling with getting my data re-formatted using functions in
> reshape/reshape2 to get from:
>
> 1957 0.862500000
> 1958 0.750000000
> 1959 0.300000000
> 1960 0.287500000
> 1963 0.675000000
> 1964 0.937500000
> 1965 0.025000000
> 1966 0.387500000
> 1969 0.087500000
> 1970 0.275000000
> 1973 0.500000000
> 1974 0.362500000
> 1976 0.925000000
> 1978 0.712500000
> 1979 0.337500000
> 1980 0.700000000
> 1981 0.425000000
> 1982 0.212500000
> 1983 0.312500000
> 1986 0.237500000
> 1958 0.643564356
> 1963 0.250000000
> 1968 0.211538462
> 1976 0.317307692
> 1981 0.673076923
> 1985 0.730769231
> 1986 0.057692308
> 1957 0.073394495
> 1966 0.742574257
> 1961 0.082568807
> 1964 0.165137615
> 1965 0.137614679
> 1959 0.128712871
> 1968 0.587155963
> 1969 0.660550459
> 1970 0.477064220
> 1971 0.513761468
> 1973 0.449541284
> 1974 0.128440367
> 1968 0.415841584
> 1977 0.009174312
> 1979 0.339449541
> 1981 0.596330275
> 1982 0.348623853
> 1984 0.146788991
> 1986 0.651376147
> 1959 0.451923077
> 1965 0.750000000
> 1962 0.326732673
> 1964 0.782178218
> 1970 0.336538462
> 1975 0.277227723
> 1978 0.712871287
> 1957 0.509615385
> 1960 0.490384615
> 1961 0.721153846
> 1966 0.298076923
> 1969 0.413461538
> 1971 0.500000000
> 1972 0.692307692
> 1974 0.653846154
> 1984 0.049504950
> 1978 0.442307692
> 1973 0.079207921
> 1983 0.355769231
> 1984 0.038461538
> 1979 0.237623762
> 1982 0.564356436
>
> to:
>
> 1957                  1958               1959             1960 ...
> 1985           1986
> 0.509615385  0.750000000  0.451923077  0.287500000 ...
> 0.651376147
> 0.509615385
>
> and so on. It's likely the column lengths will be different, so I'm
> guessing padding with NAs will be needed. I have on the order of 1335 rows
> with years spanning 1957 to 2016.
>
> Thank you...
> Tom
>
> --
>
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>
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