merging or joining 2 dataframes: merge, rbind.fill, etc.?

Thanks Arun and David.  Another issue I am running into are memory
issues when one of the data frames I'm trying to rbind to or merge
with are "very large".  (This is a repetitive  problem, as I am trying
to merge/rbind thousands of small dataframes into a single "very
large" dataframe.)



I'm thinking of creating a function that creates an empty dataframe to
which I can add data, but will need to first determine and ensure that
each dataframe has the exact same columns, in the exact same
"location".



Before I write any new code, is there any pre-existing functions or
code that might solve this problem of "merging small or medium sized
dataframes with a "very large" dataframe.)

On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 2:00 PM, David L Carlson <dcarlson at tamu.edu> wrote:

Clumsy but it doesn't require any packages:

merge2 <- function(x, y) {
if(all(union(names(x), names(y)) == intersect(names(x), names(y)))){
   rbind(x, y)
   } else merge(x, y, all=TRUE)
}
merge2(df1, df2)
df3 <- df1
merge2(df1, df3)

----------------------------------------------
David L Carlson
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4352

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
project.org] On Behalf Of arun
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 1:14 PM
To: Anika Masters
Cc: R help
Subject: Re: [R] merging or joining 2 dataframes: merge, rbind.fill,
etc.?

Hi,

You could also try:
library(gtools)
smartbind(df2,df1)
#  a  b  d
#1 7 99 12
#2 7 99 12


When df1!=df2
smartbind(df1,df2)
#   a  b  d  x  y  c
#1  7 99 12 NA NA NA
#2 NA 34 88 12 44 56
A.K.




----- Original Message -----
From: Anika Masters <anika.masters at gmail.com>
To: r-help at r-project.org
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 1:55 PM
Subject: [R] merging or joining 2 dataframes: merge, rbind.fill, etc.?

#I want to "merge" or "join" 2 dataframes (df1 & df2) into a 3rd
(mydf).  I want the 3rd dataframe to contain 1 row for each row in df1
& df2, and all the columns in both df1 & df2. The solution should
"work" even if the 2 dataframes are identical, and even if the 2
dataframes do not have the same column names.  The rbind.fill function
seems to work.  For learning purposes, are there other "good" ways to
solve this problem, using merge or other functions other than
rbind.fill?

#e.g. These 3 examples all seem to "work" correctly and as I hoped:

df1 <- data.frame(matrix(data=c(7, 99, 12) ,  nrow=1 ,  dimnames =
list( NULL ,  c('a' , 'b' , 'd') ) ) )
df2 <- data.frame(matrix(data=c(88, 34, 12, 44, 56) ,  nrow=1 ,
dimnames = list( NULL ,  c('d' , 'b' , 'x' ,  'y', 'c') ) ) )
mydf <- merge(df2, df1, all.y=T, all.x=T)
mydf

#e.g. this works:
library(reshape)
mydf <- rbind.fill(df1, df2)
mydf

#This works:
library(reshape)
mydf <- rbind.fill(df1, df2)
mydf

#But this does not (the 2 dataframes are identical)
df1 <- data.frame(matrix(data=c(7, 99, 12) ,  nrow=1 ,  dimnames =
list( NULL ,  c('a' , 'b' , 'd') ) ) )
df2 <- df1
mydf <- merge(df2, df1, all.y=T, all.x=T)
mydf

#Any way to get "mere" to work for this final example? Any other good
solutions?