You have not defined a data frame since data frames cannot contain lists, but lists can contain data frames so you are asking about how to process a list. I'm changing your object names to a, b, and d because c() is the concatenation function and it can cause all kinds of problems to use it as an object name.
> a <- list(b=c(1988, 1989), d=list(c(1985, 1982, 1984), c(1988, 1980))) > a $b [1] 1988 1989 $d $d[[1]] [1] 1985 1982 1984 $d[[2]] [1] 1988 1980 > a$b; a[[1]] # Two ways to refer to the first element of the list [1] 1988 1989 [1] 1988 1989 > a$d; a[[2]] # Two ways to refer to the second element of the list [[1]] [1] 1985 1982 1984 [[2]] [1] 1988 1980 [[1]] [1] 1985 1982 1984 [[2]] [1] 1988 1980 > a[[2]][[1]]; a$d[[1]] # Two ways to refer to the 1st element of the 2nd element [1] 1985 1982 1984 [1] 1985 1982 1984 > a[[2]][[2]]; a$d[[2]] # Two ways to refer to the 2nd element of the 2nd element [1] 1988 1980 [1] 1988 1980 > a$new <- sapply(1:2, function(i) a$b[i] - a$d[[i]]) > a$new [[1]] [1] 3 6 4 [[2]] [1] 1 9 You can do all this with a data.frame if you think about it differently: > a <- data.frame(year = c(1988, 1989), group = c("G1988", "G1989")) > b <- data.frame(group = c(rep("G1988", 3), rep("G1989", 2)), d = c(1985, 1982, 1984, 1988, 1980)) > ab <- merge(a, b) > ab <- data.frame(ab, diff=ab$year-ab$d) > new <- split(ab$diff, ab$group) > new $G1988 [1] 3 6 4 $G1989 [1] 1 9 ---------------------------------------------- David L Carlson Associate Professor of Anthropology Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-4352 > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces@r- > project.org] On Behalf Of jimi adams > Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2012 3:43 PM > To: r-help@r-project.org > Subject: [R] indexing in data frames > > I'm still not fully understanding exactly how R is handling data > frames, but am getting closer. Any help with this one will likely go a > long way in getting me there. Let's say I have a data frame, let's call > it "a". Within that data frame i have two variables, let's call them > "b" and "c", where "b" is a single numeric value per observation, while > "c" is a LIST of numeric values. What I want to be able to do is > perform an operation on each element in "c" by the single element in > "b". > > So, for example, if I wanted to subtract each element in "c" from the > scalar in "b". For example, if i had > > > a$b > [1] 1988 > [2] 1989 > . > & > > a$c > [[1]] > [1] 1985 1982 1984 > [[2]] > [1] 1988 1980 > . > > I'm looking for a result of: > a$new > [[1]] > [1] 3 6 4 > [[2]] > [1] 1 9 > . > > I've tried a few different things, none of which have the desired > result. Any help appreciated. > thanks! > > jimi adams > Assistant Professor > Department of Sociology > American University > e: jad...@american.edu > w: jimiadams.com > > ______________________________________________ > 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.