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rfor-loopif-statement
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Reputation: 381

Improve my coding "for loop"

The following is a simple loop to insert a new column in a data frame after checking a specific condition (if 2 consecutive rows have the same value). The code works just fine but I would like to improve my coding skills so I ask for alternative solutions (faster, more elegant). I checked previous threads on the topic and learned a lot but I am curious about my specific case. Thanks for any input. 

vector<-1
vector_tot<-NULL

  for(i in 1:length(dat$Label1))
  { 
     vector_tot<-c(vector_tot,vector)
     if(dat$Label1[i]==dat$Label1[i+1]){
    vector<-0  
    }
    else {
      vector<-1
      }
      }


dat$vector<- vector_tot

Upvotes: 2

Views: 82

Answers (2)

Florian
Florian

Reputation: 25385

For many things in R, you do not need a for loop, since functions are vectorized. So we can achieve what you want with:

# sample data
dat <- data.frame(Label1=c("A","B","B","C","C","C","D"),stringsAsFactors = F)

# first create a vector that contains the previous value
dat$next_element <- c(dat$Label1[2:nrow(dat)],"")

# then check if they match
dat$vector <- as.numeric(dat$Label1==dat$next_element)

Output:

  Label1 next_element vector
1      A            B      0
2      B            B      1
3      B            C      0
4      C            C      1
5      C            C      1
6      C            D      0
7      D                   0

It can also be done in one line, but I think the above illustrates better how it works:

dat$vector <- dat$Label1==c(dat$Label1[2:nrow(dat)],"")

Or compare with the previous element:

dat$vector <- dat$Label1==c("",dat$Label1[1:nrow(dat)-1])

Upvotes: 3

Andrew Gustar
Andrew Gustar

Reputation: 18425

You can do this in one line...

library(dplyr)    #for the 'lead' function
dat = data.frame(Label1=c("A","B","B","C","C","C","D"),stringsAsFactors = F)

dat$vector <- as.numeric(dat$Label1!=lead(dat$Label1,default = ""))

dat
  Label1 vector
1      A      1
2      B      0
3      B      1
4      C      0
5      C      0
6      C      1
7      D      1

Upvotes: 2

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