Hi all,

Thanks for your responses.  The merge output works for the test case as Bill
pointed out, but is contingent on non-overlapping values.  Thanks for
pointing this out Ian.  My actual dataset needs to allow for overlapping
values (sorry for the poor test case) so I will cook up something like Ian
and Dennis suggested.

Thanks again.

Jonathan

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Ian Gow <iandgow@gmail.com> wrote:

> That approach relies on df1 and df2 not having overlapping values in b.
> Slight variation in df2 gives different results:
>
> > df1 <- data.frame(a=c("A","A"),b=c("B","B"))
> > df2 <- data.frame(b=c("B","B"),c=c("c","c"))
> > merge(df1,df2,all=TRUE)
>  b a c
> 1 B A c
> 2 B A c
> 3 B A c
> 4 B A c
>
>
> On 5/15/11 11:19 PM, "William Dunlap" <wdunlap@tibco.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-help-bounces@r-project.org
> >> [mailto:r-help-bounces@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Jonathan Flowers
> >> Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 5:41 PM
> >> To: r-help@r-project.org
> >> Subject: [R] rbind with partially overlapping column names
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> I would like to merge two data frames with partially
> >> overlapping column
> >> names with an rbind-like operation.
> >>
> >> For the follow data frames,
> >>
> >> df1 <- data.frame(a=c("A","A"),b=c("B","B"))
> >> df2 <- data.frame(b=c("b","b"),c=c("c","c"))
> >>
> >> I would like the output frame to be (with NAs where the frames don't
> >> overlap)
> >>
> >> a      b     c
> >> A     B     NA
> >> A     B     NA
> >> NA   b     c
> >> NA   b     c
> >>
> >> I am familiar with ?merge and ?rbind, but neither seem to
> >> offer a means to
> >> accomplish this.
> >
> >What is wrong with merge(all=TRUE,...)?
> >  > merge(df1,df2,all=TRUE)
> >    b    a    c
> >  1 B    A <NA>
> >  2 B    A <NA>
> >  3 b <NA>    c
> >  4 b <NA>    c
> >Rearrange the columns if that is necessary
> >  > merge(df1,df2,all=TRUE)[c("a","b","c")]
> >       a b    c
> >  1    A B <NA>
> >  2    A B <NA>
> >  3 <NA> b    c
> >  4 <NA> b    c
> >
> >Bill Dunlap
> >Spotfire, TIBCO Software
> >wdunlap tibco.com
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance.
> >>
> >> Jonathan
> >>
> >>      [[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.
> >>
> >
> >______________________________________________
> >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.
>
>
>

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