The "problem" goes away if you use
x$C <- y[1,]
If you have another row in your x, say:
x <- data.frame(A=c(1,4), B=c(2,5), C=c(3,6))
then your code
x$C <- y[1]
returns an error.
If y has the same number of rows as x$C then R has the same outcome as in your
example.
It looks like your code tells R to replace all of column C (including the name)
with all of vector y.
Maybe unexpected, but not a bug. It is consistent.
-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces at r-project.org> On Behalf Of Rui Barradas
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2023 6:43 AM
To: Christian Asseburg <rhelp at moin.fi>; r-help at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] Bug in print for data frames?
[External Email]
?s 07:18 de 25/10/2023, Christian Asseburg escreveu:> Hi! I came across this unexpected behaviour in R. First I thought it was a
bug in the assignment operator <- but now I think it's maybe a bug in the
way data frames are being printed. What do you think?
>
> Using R 4.3.1:
>
>> x <- data.frame(A = 1, B = 2, C = 3)
>> y <- data.frame(A = 1)
>> x
> A B C
> 1 1 2 3
>> x$B <- y$A # works as expected
>> x
> A B C
> 1 1 1 3
>> x$C <- y[1] # makes C disappear
>> x
> A B A
> 1 1 1 1
>> str(x)
> 'data.frame': 1 obs. of 3 variables:
> $ A: num 1
> $ B: num 1
> $ C:'data.frame': 1 obs. of 1 variable:
> ..$ A: num 1
>
> Why does the print(x) not show "C" as the name of the third
element? I did mess up the data frame (and this was a mistake on my part), but
finding the bug was harder because print(x) didn't show the C any longer.
>
> Thanks. With best wishes -
>
> . . . Christian
>
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Hello,
To expand on the good answers already given, I will present two other example
data sets.
Example 1. Imagine that instead of assigning just one column from y to x$C you
assign two columns. The result is a data.frame column. See what is displayed as
the columns names.
And unlike what happens with `[`, when asssigning columns 1:2, the operator `[[`
doesn't work. You will have to extract the columns y$A and y$B one by one.
x <- data.frame(A = 1, B = 2, C = 3)
y <- data.frame(A = 1, B = 4)
str(y)
#> 'data.frame': 1 obs. of 2 variables:
#> $ A: num 1
#> $ B: num 4
x$C <- y[1:2]
x
#> A B C.A C.B
#> 1 1 2 1 4
str(x)
#> 'data.frame': 1 obs. of 3 variables:
#> $ A: num 1
#> $ B: num 2
#> $ C:'data.frame': 1 obs. of 2 variables:
#> ..$ A: num 1
#> ..$ B: num 4
x[[1:2]] # doesn't work
#> Error in .subset2(x, i, exact = exact): subscript out of bounds
Example 2. Sometimes it is usefull to get a result like this first and then
correct the resulting df. For instance, when computing more than one summary
statistics.
str(agg) below shows that the result summary stats is a matrix, so you have a
column-matrix. And once again the displayed names reflect that.
The trick to make the result a df is to extract all but the last column as a
sub-df, extract the last column's values as a matrix (which it is) and then
cbind the two together.
cbind is a generic function. Since the first argument to cbind is a sub-df, the
method called is cbind.data.frame and the result is a df.
df1 <- data.frame(A = rep(c("a", "b", "c"),
5L), X = 1:30)
# the anonymous function computes more than one summary statistics # note that
it returns a named vector agg <- aggregate(X ~ A, df1, \(x) c(Mean = mean(x),
S = sd(x))) agg
#> A X.Mean X.S
#> 1 a 14.500000 9.082951
#> 2 b 15.500000 9.082951
#> 3 c 16.500000 9.082951
# similar effect as in the OP, The difference is that the last # column is a
matrix, not a data.frame
str(agg)
#> 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 2 variables:
#> $ A: chr "a" "b" "c"
#> $ X: num [1:3, 1:2] 14.5 15.5 16.5 9.08 9.08 ...
#> ..- attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2
#> .. ..$ : NULL
#> .. ..$ : chr [1:2] "Mean" "S"
# nc is just a convenience, avoids repeated calls to ncol nc <- ncol(agg)
cbind(agg[-nc], agg[[nc]])
#> A Mean S
#> 1 a 14.5 9.082951
#> 2 b 15.5 9.082951
#> 3 c 16.5 9.082951
# all is well
cbind(agg[-nc], agg[[nc]]) |> str()
#> 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 3 variables:
#> $ A : chr "a" "b" "c"
#> $ Mean: num 14.5 15.5 16.5
#> $ S : num 9.08 9.08 9.08
If the anonymous function hadn't returned a named vetor, the new column
names would have been "1". "2", try it.
Hope this helps,
Rui Barradas
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