I'm trying to transfer my understanding of plyr into dplyr, but I can't figure out how to group by multiple columns.
# make data with weird column names that can't be hard coded
data = data.frame(
asihckhdoydkhxiydfgfTgdsx = sample(LETTERS[1:3], 100, replace=TRUE),
a30mvxigxkghc5cdsvxvyv0ja = sample(LETTERS[1:3], 100, replace=TRUE),
value = rnorm(100)
)
# get the columns we want to average within
columns = names(data)[-3]
# plyr - works
ddply(data, columns, summarize, value=mean(value))
# dplyr - raises error
data %.%
group_by(columns) %.%
summarise(Value = mean(value))
#> Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : index out of bounds
What am I missing to translate the plyr example into a dplyr-esque syntax?
Edit 2017: Dplyr has been updated, so a simpler solution is available. See the currently selected answer.
Just so as to write the code in full, here's an update on Hadley's answer with the new syntax:
library(dplyr)
df <- data.frame(
asihckhdoydk = sample(LETTERS[1:3], 100, replace=TRUE),
a30mvxigxkgh = sample(LETTERS[1:3], 100, replace=TRUE),
value = rnorm(100)
)
# Columns you want to group by
grp_cols <- names(df)[-3]
# Convert character vector to list of symbols
dots <- lapply(grp_cols, as.symbol)
# Perform frequency counts
df %>%
group_by_(.dots=dots) %>%
summarise(n = n())
output:
Source: local data frame [9 x 3]
Groups: asihckhdoydk
asihckhdoydk a30mvxigxkgh n
1 A A 10
2 A B 10
3 A C 13
4 B A 14
5 B B 10
6 B C 12
7 C A 9
8 C B 12
9 C C 10