dplyr left_join by less than, greater than condition

Question

This question is somewhat related to issues Efficiently merging two data frames on a non-trivial criteria and Checking if date is between two dates in r. And the one I have posted here requesting if the feature exist: GitHub issue

I am looking to join two dataframes using dplyr::left_join(). The condition I use to join is less-than, greater-than i.e, <= and >. Does dplyr::left_join() support this feature? or do the keys only take = operator between them. This is straightforward to run from SQL (assuming I have the dataframe in the database)

Here is a MWE: I have two datasets one firm-year (fdata), while second is sort of survey data that happens once every five years. So for all years in the fdata that are in between two survey years, I join the corresponding survey year data.

id <- c(1,1,1,1,
        2,2,2,2,2,2,
        3,3,3,3,3,3,
        5,5,5,5,
        8,8,8,8,
        13,13,13)

fyear <- c(1998,1999,2000,2001,1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,
       1998,1999,2000,2001,2002,2003,1998,1999,2000,2001,
       1998,1999,2000,2001,1998,1999,2000)

byear <- c(1990,1995,2000,2005)
eyear <- c(1995,2000,2005,2010)
val <- c(3,1,5,6)

sdata <- tbl_df(data.frame(byear, eyear, val))

fdata <- tbl_df(data.frame(id, fyear))

test1 <- left_join(fdata, sdata, by = c("fyear" >= "byear","fyear" < "eyear"))

I get

Error: cannot join on columns 'TRUE' x 'TRUE': index out of bounds 

Unless if left_join can handle the condition, but my syntax is missing something?

Answer 1

data.table adds non-equi joins starting from v 1.9.8

library(data.table) #v>=1.9.8
setDT(sdata); setDT(fdata) # converting to data.table in place

fdata[sdata, on = .(fyear >= byear, fyear < eyear), nomatch = 0,
      .(id, x.fyear, byear, eyear, val)]
#    id x.fyear byear eyear val
# 1:  1    1998  1995  2000   1
# 2:  2    1998  1995  2000   1
# 3:  3    1998  1995  2000   1
# 4:  5    1998  1995  2000   1
# 5:  8    1998  1995  2000   1
# 6: 13    1998  1995  2000   1
# 7:  1    1999  1995  2000   1
# 8:  2    1999  1995  2000   1
# 9:  3    1999  1995  2000   1
#10:  5    1999  1995  2000   1
#11:  8    1999  1995  2000   1
#12: 13    1999  1995  2000   1
#13:  1    2000  2000  2005   5
#14:  2    2000  2000  2005   5
#15:  3    2000  2000  2005   5
#16:  5    2000  2000  2005   5
#17:  8    2000  2000  2005   5
#18: 13    2000  2000  2005   5
#19:  1    2001  2000  2005   5
#20:  2    2001  2000  2005   5
#21:  3    2001  2000  2005   5
#22:  5    2001  2000  2005   5
#23:  8    2001  2000  2005   5
#24:  2    2002  2000  2005   5
#25:  3    2002  2000  2005   5
#26:  2    2003  2000  2005   5
#27:  3    2003  2000  2005   5
#    id x.fyear byear eyear val

You can also get this to work with foverlaps in 1.9.6 with a little more effort.