Hi, Try this: final3New<-read.table(file="real_data_cecilia.txt",sep="\t") dim(final3New) #[1] 5369??? 5 #Inside the split within split, dummy==1 for the first row.? For lists that have many rows, I selected the row with dummy==0 (from the rest) using the #condition that the absolute difference between the dimensions of those rows and the first row dimension was minimum (after I applied the first #constraint).? I guess you wanted to select only a pair of rows (dummy=0 and dummy=1) for each lists. fun1<- function(dat,percent,number){??? ??? lst1<- split(dat,list(dat$year,dat$industry)) ??? lst1New<- lapply(lst1,function(x) x[!(all(x$dummy==0)|all(x$dummy==1)),]) ??? lst2<- lst1New[lapply(lst1New,nrow)>0] ??? lst3<- lapply(lst2,function(x){ ??? ??? ??? ??? lapply(x$dimension,function(y){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ? x1<- x[(y < (x$dimension+(x$dimension*percent))) & (y > (x$dimension-(x$dimension*percent))),]??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? })??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ??? lst4<- lapply(lst3,function(x){ ??? ??? ??? ???? ?? lst<- lapply(x,function(y){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? y[!all(y$dummy==0),] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???? }) ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? lstNew<- lst[lapply(lst,nrow)>1] ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? lstNew1<- unique(lstNew) ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? }) ???????? lst5<- lst4[lapply(lst4,length)>0] ??? ?lst6<- lapply(lst5,function(x) { ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? lst<- lapply(x,function(y){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ? y[!all(y$dummy==1),] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? }) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? lst[lapply(lst,nrow)>0] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ???????? lst7<- lapply(lst6,function(x){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? lst<- lapply(x,function(y) { ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? x1<- y[1,] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? x2<- y[-1,] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? x3<- subset(x2,dummy==0) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? x4<- x3[which.min(abs(x1$dimension-x3$dimension)),] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? rbind(x1,x4) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? lstNew<-unique(lst) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? lstNew1<- lapply(lstNew,function(x){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? x[abs(diff(x$dimension)) < number,] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?lstNew1[lapply(lstNew1,nrow)>0] ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ??? ?lst8<- lst7[lapply(lst7,length)>0] ??? ?res<- do.call(rbind,lapply(lst8,function(x){ ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?do.call(rbind,x) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? }) ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ) ??? ?row.names(res)<- 1:nrow(res) ??? ?res}??? ??? ??? ??? ???? ??? ??? res10Percent<- fun1(final3New,0.1,200) dim(res10Percent) #[1] 508?? 5 ?nrow(subset(res10Percent,dummy==0)) #[1] 254 ?nrow(subset(res10Percent,dummy==1)) #[1] 254 ?head(res10Percent) #?????? firm year industry dummy dimension #1 500622043 2004??????? 1???? 1????? 1198 #2 501611886 2004??????? 1???? 0????? 1208 #3 501164600 2005??????? 1???? 1????? 1332 #4 504243349 2005??????? 1???? 0????? 1455 #5 500862893 2006??????? 1???? 1????? 5324 #6 501744860 2006??????? 1???? 0????? 5453 res5Percent<- fun1(final3New,0.05,200) ?dim(res5Percent) #[1] 548?? 5 ?nrow(subset(res5Percent,dummy==0)) #[1] 274 ? nrow(subset(res5Percent,dummy==1)) #[1] 274 res5percent1<-fun1(final3New,0.05,50) ?dim(res5percent1) #[1] 302?? 5 ?nrow(subset(res5percent1,dummy==0)) #[1] 151 ?nrow(subset(res5percent1,dummy==1)) #[1] 151 Hope it helps. A.K. ________________________________ From: Cecilia Carmo <cecilia.carmo at ua.pt> To: arun <smartpink111 at yahoo.com> Sent: Friday, June 7, 2013 7:30 PM Subject: data I'm sending the data. Thank you very much. Cec?lia The code final3<-read.table(file="real data cecilia.txt",sep="\t") lst1<-split(final3,list(final3$year,final3$industry)) lst2<-lst1[lapply(lst1,nrow)>0] lst3<-lapply(lst2,function(x) lapply(x$dimension,function(y) x[(y< (x$dimension+x$dimension*0.10)) & (y> (x$dimension-x$dimension*0.10)),])) lst4<-lapply(lst3,function(x) x[lapply(x,nrow)==2]) lst5<-lapply(lst4,function(x)x[!duplicated(x)]) lst6<-lst5[lapply(lst5,length)>0] lst7<-lapply(lst6,function(x) {lst<-lapply(x,function(y) y[sum(y$dummy)==1,]);lst[lapply(lst,nrow)>0]}) res<-do.call(rbind,lapply(lst7,function(x) do.call(rbind,x))) row.names(res)<-1:nrow(res) nrow(subset(res,res$dummy==1)) nrow(subset(res,res$dummy==0))??