R help - Jan 2016 - Merging two data files based on common dates

Hello there
Pardon my ignorance but, I have two data files with different series of dates
and x and y values.
There are common dates in both files. For example
>datafile1
date1                     xval
31/12/1982         20
1/01/1983            30
2/01/1983            40
3/01/1983            50
4/01/1983            60
5/01/1983          70
...
01/01/2010       77
...
31/12/1012       99
>datafile2
date2                  yval
3/01/1983            0.4
4/01/1983            0.5
5/01/1983            0.6
..
01/01/2010        88

All I want is a file/object that merges the two files with data for common dates
to look like this.
date                    yval  xval
3/01/1983            0.4  50
4/01/1983            0.5  60
5/01/1983            0.6  70
..
01/01/2010        88     77

I tried ' merge' and ' join' commands but somehow I have not
been able to get that. Any help will be appreciated.
Thank you.


Best regards

Santosh Aryal
CSIRO Land and Water
GPO Box 1666, Canberra ACT 2601
Ph:   02 6246 5963
Email: santosh.aryal at csiro.au<mailto:santosh.aryal at csiro.au>







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Since the date columns have different names, you need to specify the
by.x and by.y arguments to merge().

Other than that, it should work.

If you need more help, please use dput() to provide some of your data,
and include both the code you used and the error message or incorrect
result you got (that is, a reproducible example). And also, post this
information in plain text rather than HTML.

Sarah

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 1:19 AM,  <Santosh.Aryal at csiro.au>
wrote:
> Hello there
> Pardon my ignorance but, I have two data files with different series of
dates and x and y values.
> There are common dates in both files. For example
>>datafile1
> date1                     xval
> 31/12/1982         20
> 1/01/1983            30
> 2/01/1983            40
> 3/01/1983            50
> 4/01/1983            60
> 5/01/1983          70
> ...
> 01/01/2010       77
> ...
> 31/12/1012       99
>
>>datafile2
> date2                  yval
> 3/01/1983            0.4
> 4/01/1983            0.5
> 5/01/1983            0.6
> ..
> 01/01/2010        88
>
> All I want is a file/object that merges the two files with data for common
dates to look like this.
> date                    yval  xval
> 3/01/1983            0.4  50
> 4/01/1983            0.5  60
> 5/01/1983            0.6  70
> ..
> 01/01/2010        88     77
>
> I tried ' merge' and ' join' commands but somehow I have
not been able to get that. Any help will be appreciated.
> Thank you.
>
>
> Best regards
>
> Santosh Aryal
> CSIRO Land and Water
> GPO Box 1666, Canberra ACT 2601
> Ph:   02 6246 5963
> Email: santosh.aryal at csiro.au<mailto:santosh.aryal at csiro.au>
>
>
>
-- 
Sarah Goslee
http://www.numberwright.com

You did not show the structure of your datasets (with, e.g.,
 dump(c("datafile1","datafile2"),file=stdout())) nor what
your call to
merge() was.  However, it may be that you did not use the by.x and by.y
arguments to merge() to specify which columns to match.

txt1 <- "date1                     xval
31/12/1982         20
1/01/1983            30
2/01/1983            40
3/01/1983            50
4/01/1983            60
5/01/1983          70"

txt2 <- "date2                  yval
3/01/1983            0.4
4/01/1983            0.5
5/01/1983            0.6"

df1 <- read.table(text=txt1, header=TRUE)
df2 <- read.table(text=txt2, header=TRUE)
merge(x=df2, y=df1, by.x="date2", by.y="date1")
#       date2 yval xval
# 1 3/01/1983  0.4   50
# 2 4/01/1983  0.5   60
# 3 5/01/1983  0.6   70


Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 10:19 PM, <Santosh.Aryal at csiro.au> wrote:
> Hello there
> Pardon my ignorance but, I have two data files with different series of
> dates and x and y values.
> There are common dates in both files. For example
> >datafile1
> date1                     xval
> 31/12/1982         20
> 1/01/1983            30
> 2/01/1983            40
> 3/01/1983            50
> 4/01/1983            60
> 5/01/1983          70
> ...
> 01/01/2010       77
> ...
> 31/12/1012       99
>
> >datafile2
> date2                  yval
> 3/01/1983            0.4
> 4/01/1983            0.5
> 5/01/1983            0.6
> ..
> 01/01/2010        88
>
> All I want is a file/object that merges the two files with data for common
> dates to look like this.
> date                    yval  xval
> 3/01/1983            0.4  50
> 4/01/1983            0.5  60
> 5/01/1983            0.6  70
> ..
> 01/01/2010        88     77
>
> I tried ' merge' and ' join' commands but somehow I have
not been able to
> get that. Any help will be appreciated.
> Thank you.
>
>
> Best regards
>
> Santosh Aryal
> CSIRO Land and Water
> GPO Box 1666, Canberra ACT 2601
> Ph:   02 6246 5963
> Email: santosh.aryal at csiro.au<mailto:santosh.aryal at csiro.au>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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