2 dplyr: Data manipulation
dplyr is a grammar of data manipulation, providing a consistent set of verbs that help you solve the most common data manipulations.
Let us use the ***dimv command to retrieve the dimensions of the flights dataset
dim(flights)## [1] 336776 19We have 336776 rows of data and 19 columns
Type flights at the command prompt to show the flights data table
flights## # A tibble: 336,776 x 19
## year month day dep_time sched_dep_time dep_delay arr_time
## <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl> <int>
## 1 2013 1 1 517 515 2 830
## 2 2013 1 1 533 529 4 850
## 3 2013 1 1 542 540 2 923
## 4 2013 1 1 544 545 -1 1004
## 5 2013 1 1 554 600 -6 812
## 6 2013 1 1 554 558 -4 740
## 7 2013 1 1 555 600 -5 913
## 8 2013 1 1 557 600 -3 709
## 9 2013 1 1 557 600 -3 838
## 10 2013 1 1 558 600 -2 753
## # ... with 336,766 more rows, and 12 more variables: sched_arr_time <int>,
## # arr_delay <dbl>, carrier <chr>, flight <int>, tailnum <chr>,
## # origin <chr>, dest <chr>, air_time <dbl>, distance <dbl>, hour <dbl>,
## # minute <dbl>, time_hour <dttm>Notice the word tibble. This means the dataset is formated in way so that it will show only the first few rows and columns of the dataset. This is useful if you are viewing a large dataset as it doesn’t display all the data at once.
If you want to view the whole dataset, you can do this in RStudio by the typing the following command.
View(flights)Look at the above table. Notice that at the end of the table it provides some additional data.
It tells you the number of rows of data and the number of variables (columns). It then proceeds to list the additional columns of data
Below the row of columns names there is a row of metatdata which specifies the data types of the columns.
Here’s a list of common data formats.
int: integers.
dbl: doubles, or real numbers.
chr: character vectors, or strings.
dttm: date-times (a date + a time).
lgl: logical i.e. TRUE or FALSE.
fctr; factors.
date: dates.
We can use the glimpse to get an alternate view of the flights data table
glimpse(flights)## Observations: 336,776
## Variables: 19
## $ year <int> 2013, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2013, 2013,...
## $ month <int> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,...
## $ day <int> 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1,...
## $ dep_time <int> 517, 533, 542, 544, 554, 554, 555, 557, 557, 55...
## $ sched_dep_time <int> 515, 529, 540, 545, 600, 558, 600, 600, 600, 60...
## $ dep_delay <dbl> 2, 4, 2, -1, -6, -4, -5, -3, -3, -2, -2, -2, -2...
## $ arr_time <int> 830, 850, 923, 1004, 812, 740, 913, 709, 838, 7...
## $ sched_arr_time <int> 819, 830, 850, 1022, 837, 728, 854, 723, 846, 7...
## $ arr_delay <dbl> 11, 20, 33, -18, -25, 12, 19, -14, -8, 8, -2, -...
## $ carrier <chr> "UA", "UA", "AA", "B6", "DL", "UA", "B6", "EV",...
## $ flight <int> 1545, 1714, 1141, 725, 461, 1696, 507, 5708, 79...
## $ tailnum <chr> "N14228", "N24211", "N619AA", "N804JB", "N668DN...
## $ origin <chr> "EWR", "LGA", "JFK", "JFK", "LGA", "EWR", "EWR"...
## $ dest <chr> "IAH", "IAH", "MIA", "BQN", "ATL", "ORD", "FLL"...
## $ air_time <dbl> 227, 227, 160, 183, 116, 150, 158, 53, 140, 138...
## $ distance <dbl> 1400, 1416, 1089, 1576, 762, 719, 1065, 229, 94...
## $ hour <dbl> 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5,...
## $ minute <dbl> 15, 29, 40, 45, 0, 58, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ...
## $ time_hour <dttm> 2013-01-01 05:00:00, 2013-01-01 05:00:00, 2013...Subsetting Variables (Columns) using the select() functions
How to select all columns
allFlights <- select(flights, everything())
head(allFlights)## # A tibble: 6 x 19
## year month day dep_time sched_dep_time dep_delay arr_time
## <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl> <int>
## 1 2013 1 1 517 515 2 830
## 2 2013 1 1 533 529 4 850
## 3 2013 1 1 542 540 2 923
## 4 2013 1 1 544 545 -1 1004
## 5 2013 1 1 554 600 -6 812
## 6 2013 1 1 554 558 -4 740
## # ... with 12 more variables: sched_arr_time <int>, arr_delay <dbl>,
## # carrier <chr>, flight <int>, tailnum <chr>, origin <chr>, dest <chr>,
## # air_time <dbl>, distance <dbl>, hour <dbl>, minute <dbl>,
## # time_hour <dttm>How to select some of the columns
carrierFlightTime <- select(flights, carrier, air_time)
head(carrierFlightTime)## # A tibble: 6 x 2
## carrier air_time
## <chr> <dbl>
## 1 UA 227
## 2 UA 227
## 3 AA 160
## 4 B6 183
## 5 DL 116
## 6 UA 150How to select columns by specifying the columns you don’t want included
carrierMinusTailnum <- select(flights, -tailnum)
head(carrierMinusTailnum)## # A tibble: 6 x 18
## year month day dep_time sched_dep_time dep_delay arr_time
## <int> <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl> <int>
## 1 2013 1 1 517 515 2 830
## 2 2013 1 1 533 529 4 850
## 3 2013 1 1 542 540 2 923
## 4 2013 1 1 544 545 -1 1004
## 5 2013 1 1 554 600 -6 812
## 6 2013 1 1 554 558 -4 740
## # ... with 11 more variables: sched_arr_time <int>, arr_delay <dbl>,
## # carrier <chr>, flight <int>, origin <chr>, dest <chr>, air_time <dbl>,
## # distance <dbl>, hour <dbl>, minute <dbl>, time_hour <dttm>How to select columns whose name starts with a character string.
flightsStartWithTime <- select(flights, starts_with("time"))
flightsStartWithTime## # A tibble: 336,776 x 1
## time_hour
## <dttm>
## 1 2013-01-01 05:00:00
## 2 2013-01-01 05:00:00
## 3 2013-01-01 05:00:00
## 4 2013-01-01 05:00:00
## 5 2013-01-01 06:00:00
## 6 2013-01-01 05:00:00
## 7 2013-01-01 06:00:00
## 8 2013-01-01 06:00:00
## 9 2013-01-01 06:00:00
## 10 2013-01-01 06:00:00
## # ... with 336,766 more rowsHow to select columns whose name ends with a character string.
flightsEndsWithTime <- select(flights, ends_with("time"))
flightsEndsWithTime## # A tibble: 336,776 x 5
## dep_time sched_dep_time arr_time sched_arr_time air_time
## <int> <int> <int> <int> <dbl>
## 1 517 515 830 819 227
## 2 533 529 850 830 227
## 3 542 540 923 850 160
## 4 544 545 1004 1022 183
## 5 554 600 812 837 116
## 6 554 558 740 728 150
## 7 555 600 913 854 158
## 8 557 600 709 723 53
## 9 557 600 838 846 140
## 10 558 600 753 745 138
## # ... with 336,766 more rows