R help - Nov 2009 - Comparison of vectors in a matrix

Hi,

I have a matrix with two columns, and the elements of the matrix are
vectors.

So for example, in line 3 of column 1 I have a vector v31=("marc",
"robert,
"marie").

What I need to do is to compare all vectors in column 1 and 2, so as to get,
for example setdiff(v31,v32) into a new column.

Is there a way to do this in R?

Thanks!
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Nice problem!

If I understand you correctly, here's how to do it (with list-based
matrices):
> set.seed(1)
> (x <- matrix(lapply(rpois(10,2)+1, function(k) sample(letters[1:10],
size=k)), ncol=2, dimnames=list(1:5,c("A","B"))))
  A           B          
1 Character,2 Character,5
2 Character,2 Character,5
3 Character,3 Character,3
4 Character,5 Character,3
5 Character,2 "i"        
> x[1,1]
[[1]]
[1] "c" "b"
> x[1,2]
[[1]]
[1] "c" "d" "a" "j" "f"
> (y <- cbind(x, "A-B"=apply(x, 1, function(ab) setdiff(ab[[1]],
ab[[2]]))))
  A           B           A-B        
1 Character,2 Character,5 "b"        
2 Character,2 Character,5 "g"        
3 Character,3 Character,3 Character,3
4 Character,5 Character,3 Character,2
5 Character,2 "i"         Character,2
> y[1,3]
[[1]]
[1] "b"
> 
-- Tony Plate

esterhazy wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a matrix with two columns, and the elements of the matrix are
> vectors.
> 
> So for example, in line 3 of column 1 I have a vector
v31=("marc", "robert,
> "marie").
> 
> What I need to do is to compare all vectors in column 1 and 2, so as to
get,
> for example setdiff(v31,v32) into a new column.
> 
> Is there a way to do this in R?
> 
> Thanks!