How to use acast (reshape2) within a function in R?
I tried to use acast
from reshape2
within a self written function, but had the problem that acast did not find the data I send to it.
Here is my data:
library("reshape2")
x <- data.frame(1:3, rnorm(3), rnorm(3), rnorm(3))
colnames(x) <- c("id", "var1", "var2", "var3")
y <-melt(x, id = "id", measure = c("var1", "var2", "var3"))
y
then looks like this:
id variable value
1 1 var1 0.1560812
2 2 var1 1.0343844
3 3 var1 -1.4157728
4 1 var2 0.8808935
5 2 var2 0.1719239
6 3 var2 0.6723758
7 1 var3 -0.7589631
8 2 var3 1.1325995
9 3 var3 -1.5744876
now I can cast it back via acast
:
开发者_开发技巧> acast(y,y[,1] ~ y[,2])
var1 var2 var3
1 0.1560812 0.8808935 -0.7589631
2 1.0343844 0.1719239 1.1325995
3 -1.4157728 0.6723758 -1.5744876
However, when writing a small wrapper for acast
that should do the same, i get a stupid error messages:
wrap.acast <- function(dat, v1 = 1, v2 = 2) {
out <- acast(dat, dat[,v1] ~ dat[,v2])
return(out)
}
wrap.acast(y)
Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : object 'dat' not found
The problem is obviously related to something like environments and global/local variables. As it gives other error messages after declaring dat
in the global environment (i.e., v1
and v2
not found as long as they aren't global).
I would like to use resahpe (especially acast) within a function without the necessity of declaring the variables outside the function. What is the trick?
Thanks.
Instead of using the formula specification, use the character specification:
acast(y, list(names(y)[1], names(y)[2]))
One issue is that you are abusing the formula notation in R. You shouldn't do things like
> acast(y, y[,1] ~ y[,2])
var1 var2 var3
1 2.1726117 0.6107264 0.291446236
2 0.4755095 -0.9340976 -0.443291873
3 -0.7099464 -1.2536334 0.001105352
as the 'y' bits are redundant if a data object is supplied. If you refer to the variables of y by name directly in the formula, things work nicely
> acast(y, id ~ variable)
var1 var2 var3
1 2.1726117 0.6107264 0.291446236
2 0.4755095 -0.9340976 -0.443291873
3 -0.7099464 -1.2536334 0.001105352
and the code is much more readable in this second version.
To do what you want using the acast
wrapper is going to involve generating the correct formula using the names
, as Joris points out, and Hadley's solution is much simpler. So my point really is to watch out with how you use formula specification in R. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble in the long run (though not specifically with this particular problem) if you use formulas properly.
Correction : problem is not that it doesn't find dat, but that it doesn't find dat[,v1] and dat[,v2] in the specified formula. Acast takes an argument of the type formula, and that one gets evaluated in a temporary environment created around your data frame. Within that environment, it doesn't find a "dat" object when the function is wrapped within another.
I'm not completely following as to how this does work in the global and doesn't when wrapped, but if you feed acast a formula, it does work within a function as well.
wrap.acast <- function(dat, v1 = 1, v2 = 2) {
x1 <- names(dat)[v1]
x2 <- names(dat)[v2]
form <- as.formula(paste(x1,"~",x2))
out <- acast(dat,form)
return(out)
}
using your toy data :
> wrap.acast(y)
var1 var2 var3
1 0.04095337 0.4044572 -0.4532233
2 1.23905358 1.2493187 0.7083557
3 0.72798307 0.7868746 1.7144811
I found a pretty inelegant way to solve the problem using super assignments (<<-
).
Changing the function to the following does the job. But, it is pretty ugly as it creates global variables which remain.
wrap.acast <- function(dat, v1 = 1, v2 = 2) {
dat <<- dat
v1 <<- v1
v2 <<- v2
out <- acast(dat, dat[,v1] ~ dat[,v2])
return(out)
}
I am still very interested in other (less clogging) solutions.
prior to running the function:
> ls()
[1] "wrap.acast" "x" "y"
after running the function:
> ls()
[1] "dat" "v1" "v2" "wrap.acast" "x"
[6] "y"
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