Data Wrangling II

Outline

Review

Grouped operations

Joining data.frames

{review}

Steps for analysis

Articulate question of interest

Translate your question into code

Execute your program

{dplyr}

DPLYR's Data Manipulation Grammar

Select the columns of interest

Filter down to rows of interest

Mutate new columns

# Arguments are data.frame, then comma separated column names
my_cols <- select(df, col1, col2, col3)
# Arguments are data.frame, then comma separated boolean operators
my_rows <- filter(df, col1 > col2, col2 < col3, col4 == "hello")
# Arguments are data.frame, then comma separated sorting columns
sorted_df <- arrange(df, col1, desc(col2))

Arrange your data by a column's values

# Arguments are data.frame, then comma separated new columns
new_df <- mutate(df, combined = col1 + col2, diff = col1 - col2)

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Select storm and pressure columns from storms dataframe
storms <- select(storms, storm, pressure)

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Filter down storms to storms with name Ana or Alberto
storms <- filter(storms, storm %in% c('Ana', 'Alberto')

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Add ratio and inverse ratio columns
storms <- mutate(storms, ratio = pressure/wind, inverse = 1/ratio

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Arrange storms by wind
storms <- arrange(storms, wind)

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

Additional funcitonality

Select helper functions

# Make a data.frame
students <- data.frame(
  names=c('Mason', 'Tabi', 'Bryce'),
  math_exam1 = c(91, 82, 93), 
  math_exam2 = c(88, 79, 77),
  spanish_exam1 = c(79, 88, 92), 
  spanish_exam2 = c(99, 92, 92)
)

# Select students + math grades
math_grades <- select(students, names, math_exam1, math_exam2)

# Better yet!
math_grades <- select(students, names, contains("math"))

# See also: starts_with, ends_with, matches

Additional funcitonality

Using select_ (or filter_, mutate_, etc.)

# Make a data.frame
students <- data.frame(
  names=c('Mason', 'Tabi', 'Bryce'),
  math_exam1 = c(91, 82, 93), 
  math_exam2 = c(88, 79, 77),
  spanish_exam1 = c(79, 88, 92), 
  spanish_exam2 = c(99, 92, 92)
)

# Why is this useful?
exam_of_interest <- 'math_exam1'
exam_grades <- select_(students, 'names', exam_of_interest)

{exercise 1}

today's exercises inspired by Intro to dplyr documentation

Summarise

Great for calculating summaries

# Compute values of interest
summarise(students, 
            mean_math1 = mean(math_exam1), 
            mean_math2 = mean(math_exam2),
            mean_math_scores=mean((math_exam1 + math_exam2) / 2)
          )

Calculate one value from a set of values

# Compute values of interest
summarise(students, 
            num_students = n()
          )

A nifty trick

Grouped operations

Group data by column values

Ask questions that compare computed values

Data needs to be in the right format

Data shapes

Wide data

Long  data

Long data will let you group by column and compare computed values

Reshaping

# Reshape students from wide to long format (just FYI)
varying <- c('math_exam1', 'spanish_exam1', 'math_exam2', 'spanish_exam2')
students_long <- reshape(students, 
        timevar='exam', 
        idvar='names', 
        v.names = 'score',
        times=varying, 
        varying=varying,
        direction="long") %>% arrange(names, score)

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Group the pollution data.frame by city for comparison
pollution <- group_by(pollution, city)

credit: Nathan Stephens, Rstudio

# Group the pollution data.frame by city for comparison
pollution <- group_by(pollution, city) %>%
               summarise(
                mean = mean(amount, na.rm = TRUE), 
                sum = sum(amount, na.rm = TRUE), 
                n = n()
            )

Grouped data

Which student has the highest average?

Which exam was most difficult?

Which student has the highest math average?

Which Spanish exam had the lowest average score?

{exercise 2}

Joins

Joins

Why is this airport information stored in a separate table?

Joins

Allow you to combine columns from multiple data sources

Foundation of relational databases

Specify the identifying columns shared by the columns

Many types of joins (easy to confuse)

Left-joins

Join two data.frames by shared identifier(s)

# These could be different!
joined_x_y <- left_join(x, y, by='identifier')
joined_y_x <- left_join(x, y, by='identifier')

Order matters!

Returns all rows in x, and all columns for x and y

# Join x and y by 'identifier'
joined <- left_join(x, y, by='identifier')

Left-joins

# Student majors
majors <- data.frame(
  student_id=c(1, 2, 3),
  major=c('sociology', 'math', 'biology')
)

# Student contact info
contact_info <- data.frame(
  student_id=c(1,2), 
  cell=c('382-842-5873', '593-254-5834')
)

# Left join
joined <- left_join(majors, contact_info, by='student_id')

# Order matters!
joined <- left_join(contact_info, majors, by='student_id')

{exercise 3}

Assignments

Assignment-4: Data wrangling (due Wed. 2/3)

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