how about this
f <- as.matrix(dmat)
f[,4:6]
#you get repeats but I think this is what you want

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Michael Rennie <mdrennie@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone have any tips for extracting chunks of data from a distance
> matrix?
>
> For instance, if one was interested in only a subset of distance
> comparisons (i.e., that of rows 4 thru 6, and no others), is there a
> simple way to pull that data out?
>
> >From some playing around with an example (below), I've been able to
> figure out that a distance matrix in R is stored as a single vector,
> running top to bottom and left to right, so if you know the size of
> your distance matrix, you can figure out which elements to query and
> stick them together using c().
>
> However, all this stuff is still indexed by the "labels" attribute.
> Does anyone know of a way to use that to pull out subsets from the
> distance matrix in a simpler manner than my example code below?
>
> ##############
> # ex_dist.R
> # example for
> # manipulating
> # distance matrices
> ####################
>
> set.seed<-12345
>
> a<-sample(20:40, 10)
> b<-sample(80:100, 10)
> c<-sample(0:40, 10)
>
> dat<-data.frame(a,b,c)
> dat
>
> dmat<-dist(dat, method="euclidean")
> dmat
>
> dmat[1:6] #vector that stores the distance matrix runs descending down
> columns, left to right
>
> #in a 10-element distance matrix, column lengths are 9,8,7,6....1
>
> #get comparisons of rows 1:4 (from dat) ONLY
> #top-left matrix will consist of top 3 of first column, top 2 of
> second col, top 1 or third col.
>
> topleft<-c(dmat[1:3],dmat[10:11],dmat[18])
> topleft
>
> #get comparisons of rows 9:10 (from dat) ONLY
> #bottom right 4
>
> bottomright<-c(dmat[8:9],dmat[16:17])
> bottomright
>
> #######end#####
>
> I'm sure there's a simpler way to do this using the labels of the
> distance matrix, but I can't see it. I've thought of converting it
> using as.matrix(), which would allow me to pull out particular rows,
> but I'm only interested in the triangluar matrix. Now, if there was a
> way to as.matrix(dmat) such that I got the bottom triangular matrix
> and zeros elsewhere, then I'd be in buisness. Any suggestions on how
> to pull that off would be helpful.
>
> I'm certainly interested in any tips or tricks anyone might have for
> working with distance matrices, or any material that people can point
> me towards.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Mike
>
> --
> Michael D. Rennie
> Ph.D. Candidate
> University of Toronto at Mississauga
> 3359 Missisagua Rd. N.
> Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
> Ph: 905-828-5452 Fax: 905-828-3792
> www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3rennie <http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/%7Ew3rennie>
>
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>



-- 
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little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and make us
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