Hi, It's not clear regarding those blanks especially, the num_daughter. I guess the father and mother would be the same as the previous row.
Deleting those rows: df1 <- read.table(text="father mother num_daughter daughter 291 3906 0 NA 275 4219 0 NA 273 4236 1 49410 281 4163 1 49408 274 4226 1 49406 295 3869 2 49403 287 4113 0 NA 295 3871 1 49401 292 3895 4 49396 291 3900 3 49392", header=TRUE) reshape(df1,v.names="daughter",idvar=c("father","mother"),timevar="num_daughter",direction="wide") A.K. ----- Original Message ----- From: Yao He <yao.h.1...@gmail.com> To: R help <r-help@r-project.org> Cc: Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 7:42 AM Subject: [R] how to read a df like that and transform it? Dear all I have a data.frame like that : father mother num_daughter daughter 291 3906 0 NULL 275 4219 0 NULL 273 4236 1 49410 281 4163 1 49408 274 4226 1 49406 295 3869 2 49403 49404 287 4113 0 NULL 295 3871 1 49401 292 3895 4 49396 49397 49398 49399 291 3900 3 49392 How to read it into R and transform it like that: father mother num_daughter daughter1 daughter2 daughter3 daughter4 291 3906 0 NULL 275 4219 0 NULL 273 4236 1 49410 281 4163 1 49408 274 4226 1 49406 295 3869 2 49403 49404 287 4113 0 NULL 295 3871 1 49401 292 3895 4 49396 49397 49398 49399 291 3900 3 49392 library (plyr) and library (reshape2) and other good packages are OK for me. Thanks a lot! Yao He ————————————————————————— Master candidate in 2rd year Department of Animal genetics & breeding Room 436,College of Animial Science&Technology, China Agriculture University,Beijing,100193 E-mail: yao.h.1...@gmail.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.