Thank you Phil, your method worked great!

Again, I was about to write back and add some facts -- all of the columns
need to be 'character'... when I tried my and Jonathan's solutions with
columns that were factors, I got errors.

Here's what happened when I tried to use the 'dcast' method on my actual
(not contrived) data with factors:

------------------
>county_sibley <- subset(tmp, county_id == 72)
>county_sibley <- subset(county_sibley, prct_std ==
"GIBBON")[,c("prct_std","prct_name","year")]
>county_sibley$prct_name <- factor(as.character(county_sibley$prct_name))
>county_sibley$prct_std <- factor(county_sibley$prct_std)
>county_sibley$year <- factor(county_sibley$year)

>print(county_sibley)
     prct_std prct_name year
3515   GIBBON    GIBBON 2002
7631   GIBBON    GIBBON 2006
9085   GIBBON    GIBBON 2010

>str(county_sibley)

'data.frame':   3 obs. of  3 variables:
 $ prct_std : Factor w/ 1 level "GIBBON": 1 1 1
 $ prct_name: Factor w/ 1 level "GIBBON": 1 1 1
 $ year     : Factor w/ 3 levels "2002","2006",..: 1 2 3

county_sibley_wide <- dcast(county_sibley, prct_std ~ year, value_var =
"prct_name")

Error in names(data) <- array_names(res$labels[[2]]) :
  'names' attribute [3] must be the same length as the vector [1]
------------------

Converting all used columns to character made the 'cast' and 'dcast'
solution work, so that should be noted.

Thanks to everybody,
Matt

On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Phil Spector <spector@stat.berkeley.edu>wrote:

> Another way, using just base R is
>
>  reshape(df,idvar='y',timevar='x',v.names='z',direction='wide')
>>
>  y z.A z.B z.C
> 1 D   a   b   c
> 4 E   d   e   f
> 7 F   g   h   i
>
>                                        - Phil Spector
>                                         Statistical Computing Facility
>                                         Department of Statistics
>                                         UC Berkeley
>                                         spector@stat.berkeley.edu
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, 8 Dec 2010, Matthew Pettis wrote:
>
>  Hi Jonathan,
>>
>> Thank you very much!  I was about to recall this after I found this
>> discussion (https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2008-June/164440.html),
>> but I think your solution is more tidy.
>>
>> Thank you very much!
>> Matt
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Jonathan Christensen <dzhonatan@gmail.com
>> >wrote:
>>
>>  Matt,
>>>
>>> library(reshape2)
>>> wide.df <- dcast(df, y ~ x)
>>>
>>> Works great for me.
>>>
>>> Jonathan
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Matthew Pettis <matthew.pettis@gmail.com
>>> >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I was wondering if there is an easy way that I am missing for turning a
>>>>
>>> long
>>>
>>>> dataframe into a wide one.  Below is sample code that will make what I
>>>>
>>> have
>>>
>>>> and, in comments, the form of what I want:
>>>>
>>>>   #   Have: dataframe like 'df'
>>>> df <- expand.grid( x=LETTERS[1:3], y=LETTERS[4:6])
>>>> df$z <- letters[1:length(df[,1])]
>>>>
>>>> # Want: data.frame that has following form:
>>>> #       A   B   C
>>>> #   D   a   b   c
>>>> #   E   d   e   f
>>>> #   F   g   h   i
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I looked at 'xtabs' and 'cast' from reshape/reshape2, but unless I'm
>>>> misunderstanding something, these will work only for the 'z' column
>>>> being
>>>> numeric, not textual.  Is there an easy way to do this with 'z' being
>>>> textual rather than numeric?
>>>>
>>>> tia,
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>       [[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.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Seven Deadly Sins (Gandhi):
>>  - Wealth without work             - Politics without principle
>>  - Pleasure without conscience     - Commerce without morality
>>  - Science without humanity        - Worship without sacrifice
>>  - Knowledge without character
>>
>>        [[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.
>>
>>


-- 
Seven Deadly Sins (Gandhi):
  - Wealth without work             - Politics without principle
  - Pleasure without conscience     - Commerce without morality
  - Science without humanity        - Worship without sacrifice
  - Knowledge without character

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

