constructing a Data Frame in Rcpp - c++

Question

I want to construct a data frame in an Rcpp function, but when I get it, it doesn't really look like a data frame. I've tried pushing vectors etc. but it leads to the same thing. Consider:
RcppExport SEXP makeDataFrame(SEXP in) {
Rcpp::DataFrame dfin(in);
Rcpp::DataFrame dfout;
for (int i=0;i<dfin.length();i++) {
dfout.push_back(dfin(i));
}
return dfout;
}
in R:
> .Call("makeDataFrame",mtcars,"myPkg")
[[1]]
[1] 21.0 21.0 22.8 21.4 18.7 18.1 14.3 24.4 22.8 19.2 17.8 16.4 17.3 15.2 10.4
[16] 10.4 14.7 32.4 30.4 33.9 21.5 15.5 15.2 13.3 19.2 27.3 26.0 30.4 15.8 19.7
[31] 15.0 21.4
[[2]]
[1] 6 6 4 6 8 6 8 4 4 6 6 8 8 8 8 8 8 4 4 4 4 8 8 8 8 4 4 4 8 6 8 4
[[3]]
[1] 160.0 160.0 108.0 258.0 360.0 225.0 360.0 146.7 140.8 167.6 167.6 275.8
[13] 275.8 275.8 472.0 460.0 440.0 78.7 75.7 71.1 120.1 318.0 304.0 350.0
[25] 400.0 79.0 120.3 95.1 351.0 145.0 301.0 121.0
[[4]]
[1] 110 110 93 110 175 105 245 62 95 123 123 180 180 180 205 215 230 66 52
[20] 65 97 150 150 245 175 66 91 113 264 175 335 109
[[5]]
[1] 3.90 3.90 3.85 3.08 3.15 2.76 3.21 3.69 3.92 3.92 3.92 3.07 3.07 3.07 2.93
[16] 3.00 3.23 4.08 4.93 4.22 3.70 2.76 3.15 3.73 3.08 4.08 4.43 3.77 4.22 3.62
[31] 3.54 4.11
[[6]]
[1] 2.620 2.875 2.320 3.215 3.440 3.460 3.570 3.190 3.150 3.440 3.440 4.070
[13] 3.730 3.780 5.250 5.424 5.345 2.200 1.615 1.835 2.465 3.520 3.435 3.840
[25] 3.845 1.935 2.140 1.513 3.170 2.770 3.570 2.780
[[7]]
[1] 16.46 17.02 18.61 19.44 17.02 20.22 15.84 20.00 22.90 18.30 18.90 17.40
[13] 17.60 18.00 17.98 17.82 17.42 19.47 18.52 19.90 20.01 16.87 17.30 15.41
[25] 17.05 18.90 16.70 16.90 14.50 15.50 14.60 18.60
[[8]]
[1] 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1
[[9]]
[1] 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
[[10]]
[1] 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 4 5 5 5 5 5 4
[[11]]
[1] 4 4 1 1 2 1 4 2 2 4 4 3 3 3 4 4 4 1 2 1 1 2 2 4 2 1 2 2 4 6 8 2

Answer 1

Briefly:
DataFrames are indeed just like lists with the added restriction of having to have a common length, so they are best constructed column by column.
The best way is often to look for our unit tests. Her inst/unitTests/runit.DataFrame.R
regroups tests for the DataFrame class.
You also found the .push_back() member function in Rcpp which we added for convenience and analogy with the STL. We do warn that it is not recommended: due to differences with the way R objects are constructed, we essentially always need to do full copies .push_back is not very efficient.
Despite me answering here frequently, the rcpp-devel list a better place for Rcpp questions.

Answer 2

It seems Rcpp can return a proper data.frame, provided you supply the names explicitely. I'm not sure how to adapt this to your example with arbitrary names
mkdf <- '
Rcpp::DataFrame dfin(input);
Rcpp::DataFrame dfout;
for (int i=0;i<dfin.length();i++) {
dfout.push_back(dfin(i));
}
return Rcpp::DataFrame::create( Named("x")= dfout(1), Named("y") = dfout(2));
'
library(inline)
test <- cxxfunction( signature(input="data.frame"),
mkdf, plugin="Rcpp")
test(input=head(iris))

Answer 3

Using the information from #baptiste's answer, this is what finally does give a well formed data frame:
RcppExport SEXP makeDataFrame(SEXP in) {
Rcpp::DataFrame dfin(in);
Rcpp::DataFrame dfout;
Rcpp::CharacterVector namevec;
std::string namestem = "Column Heading ";
for (int i=0;i<2;i++) {
dfout.push_back(dfin(i));
namevec.push_back(namestem+std::string(1,(char)(((int)'a') + i)));
}
dfout.attr("names") = namevec;
Rcpp::DataFrame x;
Rcpp::Language call("as.data.frame",dfout);
x = call.eval();
return x;
}
I think the point remains that this might be inefficient due to push_back (as suggested by #Dirk) and the second Language call evaluation. I looked up the rcpp unitTests, and haven't been able to come up with something better yet. Anybody have any ideas?
Update:
Using #Dirk's suggestions (thanks!), this seems to be a simpler, efficient solution:
RcppExport SEXP makeDataFrame(SEXP in) {
Rcpp::DataFrame dfin(in);
Rcpp::List myList(dfin.length());
Rcpp::CharacterVector namevec;
std::string namestem = "Column Heading ";
for (int i=0;i<dfin.length();i++) {
myList[i] = dfin(i); // adding vectors
namevec.push_back(namestem+std::string(1,(char)(((int)'a') + i))); // making up column names
}
myList.attr("names") = namevec;
Rcpp::DataFrame dfout(myList);
return dfout;
}

Answer 4

I concur with joran. The output of a C function called from within R is a list of all its arguments, both "in" and "out", so each "column" of the dataframe could be represented in the C function call as an argument. Once the result of the C function call is in R, all that remains to be done is to extract those list elements using list indexing and give them the appropriate names.