[R] rbind of multiple data frames by column name, when each data frames can contain different columns

Bert Gunter bgunter@4567 @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Thu Jun 2 22:04:15 CEST 2022


Well, it seems better to me to put all the data frames in long format and
then rbind them instead of the other way round, which results in the piles
of NA's you see. I note also, FWIW, that this accords with the so-called
"tidy" format that many advocate these days. You can always subset (rows)
and choose by station, date, etc. as needed, of course from the long format.

Because of the regularity of your data frames, it is easy to do this. Here
is a little base R function that "reforms" each data frame (I suspect Rui
may well provide a more elegant version, though):


reform<- function(dat){
   nm <- names(dat)
   stanums <- unique(gsub("[^[:digit:]]","", nm[-1])) ## station numbers
present
    z <- do.call(rbind, lapply(stanums,
      \(i)
      structure(dat[,grep(i, nm, fixed = TRUE)],
                names = c("Hs", "Hn", "flag"))))
   data.frame(POSIX =rep(dat[,1], length(stanums)),
              Station = rep(stanums, e = nrow(dat)),
              z)
}

e.g.
> reform(df2)
        POSIX Station Hs Hn flag
1  2001-12-01       1 50 20    0
2  2001-12-02       1 60 20    0
3  2001-12-03       1 70 20    0
4  2001-12-04       1 NA NA   NA
5  2001-12-05       1 NA NA   NA
6  2001-12-01       3 20  0    0
7  2001-12-02       3 20  0    0
8  2001-12-03       3 30 10    0
9  2001-12-04       3 30  0    1
10 2001-12-05       3  0  5    0

A call to rbind() of the following form then gives you all your data in
long form(you may wish to use some shortcuts to form the list of frames):

> do.call(rbind, lapply(list(df1, df2, df3), reform))
        POSIX Station Hs Hn flag
1  2000-12-01       1 30 10    0
2  2000-12-02       1 40 20    0
3  2000-12-03       1 50 10    0
4  2000-12-04       1 NA NA   NA
5  2000-12-05       1 55  5    0
6  2000-12-01       2 20  0    0
7  2000-12-02       2 20  0    0
8  2000-12-03       2 30 10    0
9  2000-12-04       2 30  0    1
10 2000-12-05       2  0  5    0
11 2001-12-01       1 50 20    0
12 2001-12-02       1 60 20    0
13 2001-12-03       1 70 20    0
14 2001-12-04       1 NA NA   NA
15 2001-12-05       1 NA NA   NA
16 2001-12-01       3 20  0    0
17 2001-12-02       3 20  0    0
18 2001-12-03       3 30 10    0
19 2001-12-04       3 30  0    1
20 2001-12-05       3  0  5    0
21 2002-12-01       2 50 20    0
22 2002-12-02       2 60 20    0
23 2002-12-03       2 70 20    0
24 2002-12-04       2 NA NA   NA
25 2002-12-05       2 NA NA   NA
26 2002-12-01       3 20  0    0
27 2002-12-02       3 20  0    0
28 2002-12-03       3 30 10    0
29 2002-12-04       3 30  0    1
30 2002-12-05       3  0  5    0


Cheers,
Bert Gunter




On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 11:13 PM Stefano Sofia <
stefano.sofia using regione.marche.it> wrote:

> Dear R-list users,
>
> for each winter season from 2000 to 2022 I have a data frame collecting
> for different weather stations snowpack height (Hs), snowfall in the last
> 24h (Hn) and a validation flag.
>
> Suppose I have these three following data frames
>
>
> df1 <- data.frame(data_POSIX=seq(as.POSIXct("2000-12-01",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), as.POSIXct("2000-12-05",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), by="1 days"), Station1_Hs = c(30, 40,
> 50, NA, 55), Station1_Hn = c(10, 20, 10, NA, 5), Station1_flag = c(0, 0, 0,
> NA, 0), Station2_Hs = c(20, 20, 30, 30, 0), Station2_Hn = c(0, 0, 10, 0,
> 5), Station2_flag = c(0, 0, 0, 1, 0))
>
>
> df2 <- data.frame(data_POSIX=seq(as.POSIXct("2001-12-01",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), as.POSIXct("2001-12-05",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), by="1 days"), Station1_Hs = c(50, 60,
> 70, NA, NA), Station1_Hn = c(20, 20, 20, NA, NA), Station1_flag = c(0, 0,
> 0, NA, NA), Station3_Hs = c(20, 20, 30, 30, 0), Station3_Hn = c(0, 0, 10,
> 0, 5), Station3_flag = c(0, 0, 0, 1, 0))
>
>
> df3 <- data.frame(data_POSIX=seq(as.POSIXct("2002-12-01",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), as.POSIXct("2002-12-05",
> format="%Y-%m-%d", tz="Etc/GMT-1"), by="1 days"), Station2_Hs = c(50, 60,
> 70, NA, NA), Station2_Hn = c(20, 20, 20, NA, NA), Station2_flag = c(0, 0,
> 0, NA, NA), Station3_Hs = c(20, 20, 30, 30, 0), Station3_Hn = c(0, 0, 10,
> 0, 5), Station3_flag = c(0, 0, 0, 1, 0))
>
>
> As you can see, each data frame can have different stations loaded.
>
> I would need to call rbind matching data frames by column name (i.e. by
> station name), keeping in mind that the number of stations loaded in each
> data frame may differ. The result should be
>
> data_POSIX Station1_Hs Station1_Hn Station1_flag Station2_Hs Station2_Hn
> Station2_flag Station3_Hs Station3_Hn Station3_flag
> 2000-12-01 30 10 0 20 0 0 NA NA NA
> 2000-12-02 40 20 0 20 0 0 NA NA NA
> 2000-12-03 50 10 0 30 10 0 NA NA NA
> 2000-12-04 NA NA NA 30 0 0 NA NA NA
> 2000-12-05 55 5 0 0 5 0 NA NA NA
> 2001-12-01 50 20 0 NA NA NA 20 0 0
> 2001-12-02 60 20 0 NA NA NA 20 0 0
> 2001-12-03 70 20 0 NA NA NA 30 10 0
> 2001-12-04 NA NA NA NA NA NA 30 0 1
> 2001-12-05 NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 5 0
> 2002-12-01 NA NA NA 50 20 0 20 0 0
> 2002-12-02 NA NA NA 60 20 0 20 0 0
> 2002-12-03 NA NA NA 70 20 0 30 10 0
> 2002-12-04 NA NA NA NA NA NA 30 0 1
> 2002-12-05 NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 5 0
>
> I tried this code
>
> df_list <- list(df1, df2, df3)
> allNms <- unique(unlist(lapply(df_list, names)))
> do.call(rbind, c(lapply(df_list, function(x) data.frame(c(x,
> sapply(setdiff(allNms, names(x)), function(y) NA)))), make.row.names=FALSE))
>
> but I get this error:
> Error in (function (..., row.names = NULL, check.rows = FALSE, check.names
> = TRUE,  :
>   arguments imply differing number of rows
>
> Could someone please help me?
>
>
> Thank you for your attention
>
> Stefano
>
>
>          (oo)
> --oOO--( )--OOo--------------------------------------
> Stefano Sofia PhD
> Civil Protection - Marche Region - Italy
> Meteo Section
> Snow Section
> Via del Colle Ameno 5
> 60126 Torrette di Ancona, Ancona (AN)
> Uff: +39 071 806 7743
> E-mail: stefano.sofia using regione.marche.it
> ---Oo---------oO----------------------------------------
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