Hi Sarah, If I understand your requirements correctly, the easiest thing to do is approach it from a different direction: df3a <- merge(df1, df2)
But you can also use rep for this simple example because plot.id in df2 is sorted: nindex <- table(df1$plot.id) df3b <- df2[rep(1:length(nindex), times=nindex),] Thanks for the reproducible example, Sarah On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 9:15 AM, Sarah Haas <haaszool...@gmail.com> wrote: > I have two dataframes (df) that share a column header ("plot.id"). In the > 1st df, "plot.id" records are repeated a variable number of times based on > the number of trees monitored within each plot. The 2nd df only has a > single record for each "plot.id", and contains a variable named "load" that > is collected at the plot-level and is only listed once per plot record. > > *OBJECTIVE:* I need to repeat the "load" values from the 2nd df based on > how many times "plot.id" is repeated in the 1st df (all plots are repeated > a different number of times). My example dfs are below: > > ************************************************************************************************ > df1 <- data.frame(plot.id = rep(c("plot1", "plot2", "plot3"), > c(3,2,5)), > tree.tag = c(111,112,113,222,223,333,334,335,336,337)) > > df2 <- data.frame(plot.id = c("plot1", "plot2", "plot3"), load=c(17, > 6, 24)) > ************************************************************************************************ > > I have gotten close to solving this, but alas I'm on day 2 of > problem-shooting and can't get it! Thanks for any help you might provide. > > --Sarah > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > -- Sarah Goslee http://www.functionaldiversity.org ______________________________________________ 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.