Stephen - Thanks a bunch for the suggestion to use "reshape".  Thank is exactly what I needed.  Here is the test code that I put together so far.  I can probably get rid of the "time" and "id" columns from the resulting reshaped_test_data data.frame, but this is will allow me to move forward.  

test_data1_df<-data.frame(Variables=c("Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall"), 
                          Run.Age=c(10, 20, 30, 40, 50),
                          Run.1=c(1,2,3,4,5),
                          Run.2=c(10,20,30,40,50), 
                          Run.3=c(11,21,31,41,51),
                          Location=c("HSV", "ATH","HSV", "ATH","FLO"))
           
test_data2_df<-data.frame(Variables=c("Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall",
                                      "Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall",
                                      "Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall","Stall"), 
                          Run.Age=c(10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 18, 28, 38, 48, 58),
                          Run.1=c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 11, 21, 31, 41, 51),
                          Location=c("HSV", "ATH", "HSV", "ATH", "FLO", 
                                     "HSV", "ATH", "HSV", "ATH", "FLO", 
                                     "HSV", "ATH", "HSV", "ATH", "FLO"))
           
           
test_data_df<-test_data1_df

length_test_data<-length(grep('^Run',names(test_data_df)))

if(length_test_data==2)
{
    reshaped_test_data<-reshape(test_data_df,
            varying=list(c('Run.1')), 
            idvar='Location',direction='long')
} else if (length_test_data==4){
    reshaped_test_data<-reshape(test_data_df,
            varying=list(c('Run.1','Run.2','Run.3')), 
            #idvar=c('Location','Run.Age'), direction='long')
            direction='long')
}

Thanks also to Phil Spector who also provided similar advice.  

--- On Mon, 3/9/09, stephen sefick <ssefick@gmail.com> wrote:
From: stephen sefick <ssefick@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [R] Data Restructuring Question
To: jasonkrupert@yahoo.com
Cc: R-help@r-project.org
Date: Monday, March 9, 2009, 9:00 PM

look at package reshape there is a cool little function input that
once you get the hang of is handy.

On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Jason Rupert <jasonkrupert@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> I think I am overlooking a call or concept in R to help me easily and
quickly restructure my data.frame:
>
> Sometimes the data I receive looks like:
> VariableName, Run1, Run2, Run3, Location
> temp,               15.0,  16.0,  17.0, There
>
> And other times it looks like:
> VariableName, Run, Location
> temp,               17.0, There
>
> I would like to use the header information in order to be able to
restructure the first data set to have a similar look as the second, i.e.
>
> VariableName, Run, Location,
> temp,               15.0,  There # Really Run1
> temp,               16.0,  There # Really Run2
> temp,               17.0,  There # Really Run3
>
> Right now I am manually recombining:
> tmp_1<-data.frame(data$VariableName, data$ Run1, data$Location)
> tmp_2<-data.frame(data$VariableName, data$ Run2, data$Location)
> tmp_3<-data.frame(data$VariableName, data$ Run3, data$Location)
>
> combine_1<-rbind(tmp_1, tmp_2)
> combine_1<-rbind(combine_1, tmp_3)
>
> Is there an easier way that is more flexible?  I would like to make it
flexible enough to handle the case where I have two or four runs.
>
> Thank you for any feedback.
>
>
>
>        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help@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.
>
>



-- 
Stephen Sefick

Let's not spend our time and resources thinking about things that are
so little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and
make us feel like gods.  We are mammals, and have not exhausted the
annoying little problems of being mammals.

								-K. Mullis



      
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]


