Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:29:43 +0100, Peter Dalgaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: You (as many before you) have overlooked the ave() function, which can replace the ordering as well the do.call(c,tapply()) Majority of questions on this list concern data manipulation. Many are repetitive. "Overlooking" like that will always happen unless some comprehensive data manipulation documentation is made. I think many people would benefit if a specialized data.manip ref.card were conceived. Tom Short's card is an excellent one but it does not cover high level packages like plyr, reshape, DoBy, and a few base data.manip functions are not there as well. Vitalie. __ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
Hi, Good idea, what do you say we try and write a page on this in the R wiki? I started the topic: http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=guides:overview-data-manip Once the content is there, it wouldn't be much of an effort to create a reference-card format if required. Best wishes, baptiste On 11 Dec 2008, at 12:38, Vitalie Spinu wrote: On Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:29:43 +0100, Peter Dalgaard <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: You (as many before you) have overlooked the ave() function, which can replace the ordering as well the do.call(c,tapply()) Majority of questions on this list concern data manipulation. Many are repetitive. "Overlooking" like that will always happen unless some comprehensive data manipulation documentation is made. I think many people would benefit if a specialized data.manip ref.card were conceived. Tom Short's card is an excellent one but it does not cover high level packages like plyr, reshape, DoBy, and a few base data.manip functions are not there as well. Vitalie. _ Baptiste Auguié School of Physics University of Exeter Stocker Road, Exeter, Devon, EX4 4QL, UK Phone: +44 1392 264187 http://newton.ex.ac.uk/research/emag __ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
__ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
>> You (as many before you) have overlooked the ave() function, which can >> replace the ordering as well the do.call(c,tapply()) >> > > Majority of questions on this list concern data manipulation. Many are > repetitive. "Overlooking" like that will always happen unless some > comprehensive data manipulation documentation is made. > I think many people would benefit if a specialized data.manip ref.card were > conceived. I like the idea, but is a reference card really enough? To me, what most people need to tackle data manipulation problems is a broad strategy, not a list of useful functions. plyr is a codification of my most recent ideas on one such strategy: splitting a big data structure into smaller pieces, applying a function to each piece and then joining them back together. Just recognising your problem can be solved with this strategy is a big step forward, the functions in plyr just save you some typing and a bit of thought compared to doing it in base R. Recognising this strategy has helped me in my own data manipulation problems - many tasks with which I used to struggle are now easy to solve, not just because of plyr, but because I have a framework in which to think about the problem. But this is just one strategy and there must be many more common strategies waiting to be identified. I think working on this would be time better spent - describing a strategy gives people the tools to help themselves. (Of course this doesn't help the people who just want canned answers, but I'm less interested in helping them) Hadley -- http://had.co.nz/ __ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:19:03 +0100, hadley wickham <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: You (as many before you) have overlooked the ave() function, which can replace the ordering as well the do.call(c,tapply()) Majority of questions on this list concern data manipulation. Many are repetitive. "Overlooking" like that will always happen unless some comprehensive data manipulation documentation is made. I think many people would benefit if a specialized data.manip ref.card were conceived. I like the idea, but is a reference card really enough? To me, what most people need to tackle data manipulation problems is a broad strategy, not a list of useful functions. Absolutely agree. A list of useful strategies is an excellent idea :). A wiki page for discussion? May be clipping some conceptual passages from your reshape and plyr documentation is a good start? And other "strategy" ideas will start flowing soon. Vitalie. __ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 1:38 PM, Vitalie Spinu wrote: > Tom Short's card is an excellent one but it does not cover high level > packages like plyr, reshape, DoBy, and a few base data.manip functions are > not there as well. > I'm not sure whether this can (partially) fill the gap, but Quick-R [1] has a decent overview of data manipulation, and is essentially a reference card. The maintainer of the Web site is open to improvements, so it might make sense to contribute relevant documentation to those pages. Regards, Liviu [1] http://www.statmethods.net/ -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail __ 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.
Re: [R] ref card for data manipulation?
On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 12:43:17 +0100, Liviu Andronic wrote: I'm not sure whether this can (partially) fill the gap, but Quick-R [1] has a decent overview of data manipulation, and is essentially a reference card. The maintainer of the Web site is open to improvements, so it might make sense to contribute relevant documentation to those pages. Oh, well, I've completely forgotten about that beautiful site. Indeed, Robert has done an amazing job by creating that site. Anyway, we started something here http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=guides:toolbox-data-manip and here http://wiki.r-project.org/rwiki/doku.php?id=guides:overview-data-manip Hopefully something useful will emerge out of it. Feel free to contribute. Vitalie. __ 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.
