Problems splitting data frame into a nested list - list

I am a newbie to R and I have problem splitting a very large data frame into a nested list. I tried to look for help on the internet, but I was unsuccessful.
I have a simplified example on how my data are organized:
The headers are:
1 "station" (number)
2. "date.str" (date string)
3. "member"
4. "forecast time"
5. "data"
I am not sure my data example will show up rightly, but if so, it look like this:
1. station date.str member forecast.time data1
2. 6019 20110805 mbr000 06 77
3. 6031 20110805 mbr000 06 28
4. 6071 20110805 mbr000 06 45
5. 6019 20110805 mbr001 12 22
6. 6019 20110806 mbr024 18 66
I want to split the large data frame into a nested list after "station", "member", "date.str" and "forecast.time". So that mylist[[c(s,m,d,t)]] contains a data frame with data for station "s" and member "m" for date.str "d" and for forecast time "t" conserving the values of s, m, d and t.
My code is:
data.st <- list()
data.st.member <- list()
data.st.member.dato <- list()
data.st. <- split(mydata, mydata$station)
data.st.member <- lapply(data.st, FUN = fsplit.member)
(I created a function to split after "member")
#Loop over station number:
for (s in 1:S){
#Loop over members:
for (m in 1:length(members){
tmp <- split( data.st.member[[s]][[m]], data.st.member[[s]][[m]]$dato.str )
#Loop over number of different "date.str"s
for (t in 1:length(no.date.str) ){
data.st.member.dato[[s]][[m]][[t]] <- tmp}
} #end m loop
} #end s loop
I would also like to split according to the forecast time: forec.time, but I didn't get that far.
I have tried a couple of different configurations within the loops, so I don't at the moment have a consistent error message. I can't figure out, what I am doing or thinking wrong.
Any help is much appreciated!
Regards
Sisse

It's easier than you think. You can pass a list into split in order to split on several factors.
Reproducible example
with(airquality, split(airquality, list(Month, Day)))
With your data
data.st <- with(mydata,
split(mydata, list("station", "member", "date.str", "forecast.time"))
)
Note: This doesn't give you a nested list like you asked for, but as Joran commented, you very probably don't want that. A flat list will be nicer to work with.
Speculating wildly: did you just want to calculate statistics on different chunks of data? If so, then see the many questions here on split-apply-combine problems.

I also want to echo the others in that this recursive data structure is going to be difficult to work with and probably there are better ways. Do look at the split-apply-combine approach as Richie suggested. However, the constraints may be external, so here is an answer using the plyr library.
mylist <- dlply(mydata, .(station), dlply, .(memeber), dlply, .(date.str), dlply, .(forecast.time), identity)
Using the snippet of data you gave for mydata,
> mylist[[c("6019","mbr000","20110805","6")]]
station date.str member forecast.time data1
1 6019 20110805 mbr000 6 77

Related

Code to missing values if all Items of an Item battery have value 1

I have a large data set in Stata.
There are several item batteries in this data set.
One item battery consists of 8 items (v1 - v8), each scaled from 1 to 7.
I want to code all items that take the value 1 in all items as missing values.
If v1 to v8 have the value "1", all rows to which this applies are to be replaced with missings.
I know how to code missing values with the if qualifier, but the selection with the complex condition causes me difficulties.
The code for R would probably solve this via rowSums, but I need the solution for Stata.
(I assume in R it would work like this:
df[rowSums(df[,c("v1", ... "v8")]!=1)==0, c("v1", .... "v8")] <- NA
But I need a solution for Stata.
If I understood this correctly, you want
egen rowall = concat(v1-v8)
mvdecode v1-v8 if rowall == 8 * "1", mv(1)
That is, all instances in v1-v8 of 1 are recoded as missing if and only if the values of those variables are all 1 in any observation.

Stata macro list uniq extended function (remove duplicates from a macro var list)

This question has been edited to add sample data and clean-up (hopefully) some unnecessary steps per feedback.
I am starting with longitudinal data in wide format. I need to subset, reshape, and perform summary steps for multiple different chunks of data. I want to create macro variables with varlists needed for reshaping and other repetitive steps in wide and long format. The variables being reshaped follow a consistent naming pattern of (prefix)_(name)_#. There are also variables following the same pattern that do not need to be reshaped, and variables that are time-invariant and follow other naming conventions. To generate sample data:
set obs 1
foreach t in 0 6 15 18 21 {
foreach w in score postint postintc constime starttime {
gen p_`w'_`t' = 1
}
}
gen p_miles_0 = 1
gen p_hea_0 = 1
gen cons_age = 1
ds
I want to create two macro vars 1) wide_varlist for wide format data where the variables end in a number and 2) uniquestubs for long format data where the macro list contains just the stubs. I am having trouble using the macro list extended function "uniq" to generate #2 here. Here is my code so far. My full varlists are actually much longer.
Steps to create macro with wide format varlist:
/* create varlist for wide format data a time point 0,6,15,18,21 */
ds p_score_* p_postint_* p_postintc_* p_constime_* p_starttime_*
di "`r(varlist)'"
global wide_varlist `r(varlist)'
Start steps to create macro with long format varlist:
/*copy in wide format varlist*/
global stubs "$wide_varlist"
/*remove # - this results in a macro with 5 dups of same stub*/
foreach mo of numlist 0,6,15,18,21{
global stubs : subinstr global stubs "`mo'" "", all
}
/*keep unique stubs*/
global uniquestubs : list uniq stubs
Everything above works as I intend until global uniquestubs : list uniq stubs, which doesn't create the macro uniquestubs at all.
My situation seems similar to this this question but the same solution didn't work for me.
Any thoughts? Appreciate the help.
It's a bit difficult to follow what you are trying to do (a) without a reproducible example (b) because much of your code is just copying the same varlist to different places, which is a distraction.
We can fix (a) by creating a toy dataset:
clear
set obs 1
foreach t in 0 6 15 18 21 {
foreach w in score postint postintc constime starttime {
gen p_`w'_`t' = 1
}
}
ds
p_score_0 p_score_6 p_score_15 p_score_18 p_score_21
p_postint_0 p_postint_6 p_postint_15 p_postint_18 p_postint_21
p_postintc_0 p_postintc_6 p_postintc~5 p_postintc~8 p_postintc~1
p_constime_0 p_constime_6 p_constim~15 p_constim~18 p_constim~21
p_starttim~0 p_starttim~6 p_startti~15 p_startti~18 p_startti~21
Now the main difficulty seems to be that you want stubs for a reshape long. This code suffices for the toy dataset. There is no need to scan yet more variable names with the same information. If you don't have all variables for all time points, you may need more complicated code.
unab stubs: p_*_0
local stubs : subinstr local stubs "0" "", all
di "`stubs'"
p_score_ p_postint_ p_postintc_ p_constime_ p_starttime_
I don't understand the enthusiasm for globals here, but, programming taste aside, you can put the last result in a global quite easily.

R: Concat columns from data frame using wildcards

I got stuck with a specific question in R around concatenating columns of a data frame by using a wildcard. Perhaps I am searching wrongly. However I could not find a matching answer yet.
Here is my question:
I have a data frame df where each column represents a user (U1, U2, U3), e.g.:
> df <-data.frame(U1=1:3, U2=4:6, U3=7:9)
> df
> U1 U2 U3
1 1 4 7
2 2 5 8
3 3 6 9
I would like to concatenate the values from all users into a single vector as one would do using the c() function, e.g.:
> c(df$U1, df$U2, df$U3)
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
However, my number of users is large and varies over time. So, I look for an elegant dynamic way of concatenating the columns such as
> c(df$U*)
Unfortunately this does not seem to work. I played around with grep and regular expressions but could not get it to work. For sure, I could use a for-loop and program my own cat function but I assume there is a better way. I just don't find it. Maybe I am just blind. Hope you can help.
sub_df <- df[, grep(pattern ='^U.*', names(df))]
stack(df)$values
Hope this works for you. You could first subset some columns according to your need.
Coerce the data frame to a matrix first:
as.vector(as.matrix(df))
Use the bracket [ to select columns whose names match a certain expression:
df[, grep("U.*", colnames(df)), drop = FALSE]

Generating rolling z-scores of panel data in Stata

I have an unbalanced panel data set (countries and years). For simplicity let's say I have one variable, x, that I am measuring. The panel data sorted first by country (a 3-digit numeric country-code) and then by year. I would like to write a .do file that generates a new variable, z_x, containing the standardized values of the variable x. The variables should be standardized by subtracting the mean from the preceding (exclusive) m time periods, and then dividing by the standard deviation from those same time periods. If this is not possible, return a missing value.
Currently, the code I am using to accomplish this is the following (edited now for clarity)
xtset weocountrycode year
sort weocountrycode year
local win_len = 5 // Defining rolling window length.
quietly: rolling sd_x=r(sd) mean_x=r(mean), window(`win_len') saving(stats_x, replace): sum x
use stats_x, clear
rename end year
save, replace
use all_data_PROCESSED_FINAL.dta, clear
quietly: merge 1:1 (weocountrycode year) using stats_x
replace sd_x = . if `x'[_n-`win_len'+1] == . | weocountrycode[_n-`win_len'+1] != weocountrycode[_n] // This and next line are for deleting values that rolling calculates when I actually want missing values.
replace mean_`x' = . if `x'[_n-`win_len'+1] == . | weocountrycode[_n-`win_len'+1] != weocountrycode[_n]
gen z_`x' = (`x' - mean_`x'[_n-1])/sd_`x'[_n-1] // calculate z-score
UPDATE:
My struggle with rolling is that when rolling is set up to use a window length 5 rolling mean, it automatically does window length 1,2,3,4 means for the first, second, third and fourth entries (when there are not 5 preceding entries available to average out). In fact, it does this in general - if the first non-missing value is on entry 5, it will do a length 1 rolling average on entry 5, length 2 rolling average on entry 6, ..... and then finally start doing length 5 moving averages on entry 9. My issue is that I do not want this, so I would like to avoid performing these calculations. Until now, I have only been able to figure out how to delete them after they are done, which is both inefficient and bothersome.
I tried adding an if clause to the -rolling- statement:
quietly: rolling sd_x=r(sd) mean_x=r(mean) if x[_n-`win_len'+1] != . & weocountrycode[_n-`win_len'+1] != weocountrycode[_n], window(`win_len') saving(stats_x, replace): sum x
But it did not fix the problem and the output is "weird" in the sense that
1) If `win_len' is equal to, say, 10, there are 15 missing values in the resulting z_x variable, instead of 9.
2) Even though there are "extra" missing values in z_x, the observations still start out as window length 1 means, then window length 2 means, etc. which makes no sense to me.
Which leads me to believe I fundamentally don't understand 1) what -rolling- is doing and 2) how an if clause works in the context of -rolling-.
Does this help?
Thanks!
I'm not sure I understand completely but I'll try to answer based on what I think your problem is, and based on a comment by #NickCox.
You say:
... when rolling is set up to use a window length 5 rolling mean...
if the first non-missing value is
on entry 5, it will do a length 1 rolling average on entry 5, length 2
rolling average on entry 6, ...
This is expected. help rolling states:
The window size refers to calendar periods, not the number of
observations. If there
are missing data (for example, because of weekends), the actual number of observations used by command may be less than
window(#).
It's not actually doing a "length 1 rolling average", but I get to that later.
Below some examples to see what rolling does:
clear all
set more off
*-------------------------- example data -----------------------------
set obs 92
gen dat = _n - 1
format dat %tq
egen seq = fill(1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2)
tsset dat
tempfile main
save "`main'"
list in 1/12, separator(4)
*------------------- Example 1. None missing ------------------------
rolling mean=r(mean), window(4) stepsize(4) clear: summarize seq, detail
list in 1/12, separator(0)
*------- Example 2. All but one value, missing in first window ------
use "`main'", clear
replace seq = . in 1/3
list in 1/8
rolling mean=r(mean), window(4) stepsize(4) clear: summarize seq, detail
list in 1/12, separator(0)
*------------- Example 3. All missing in first window --------------
use "`main'", clear
replace seq = . in 1/4
list in 1/8
rolling mean=r(mean), window(4) stepsize(4) clear: summarize seq, detail
list in 1/12, separator(0)
Note I use the stepsize option to make things much easier to follow. Because the date variable is in quarters, I set windowsize(4) and stepsize(4) so rolling is just computing averages by year. I hope that's easy to see.
Example 1 does as expected. No problem here.
Example 2 on the other hand, should be more interesting for you. We've said that what matters are calendar periods, so the mean is computed for the whole year (four quarters), even though it contains missings. There are three missings and one non-missing. summarize is computing the mean over the whole year, but summarize ignores missings, so it just outputs the mean of non-missings, which in this case is just one value.
Example 3 has missings for all four quarters of the year. Therefore, summarize outputs . (missing).
Your problem, as I understand it, is that when you face a situation like Example 2, you'd like the output to be missing. This is where I think Nick Cox's advice comes in. You could try something like:
rolling mean=r(mean) N=r(N), window(4) stepsize(4) clear: summarize seq, detail
replace mean = . if N != 4
list in 1/12, separator(0)
This says: if the number of non-missings for the window (r(N), also computed by summarize), is not the same as the window size, then replace it with missing.

Stata: Efficient way to replace numerical values with string values

I have code that currently looks like this:
replace fname = "JACK" if id==103
replace lname = "MARTIN" if id==103
replace fname = "MICHAEL" if id==104
replace lname = "JOHNSON" if id==104
And it goes on for multiple pages like this, replacing an ID name with a first and last name string. I was wondering if there is a more efficient way to do this en masse, perhaps by using the recode command?
I will echo the other answers that suggest a merge is the best way to do this.
But if you absolutely must code the lines item-wise (again, messy) you can generate a long list ("pages") of replace commands by using MS Excel to "help" you write the code. Here is a picture of your Excel sheet with one example, showing the MS Excel formula:
columns:
A B C D
row: 1 last first id code
2 MARTIN JACK 103 ="replace fname=^"&B2&"^ if id=="&C2
You type that in, make sure it looks like Stata code when the formula calculates (aside from the carets), and copy the formula in column D down to the end of your list. Then copy the whole block of Stata code in column D generated by the formulas into your do-file, and do a find and replace (be careful here if you are using the caret elsewhere for mathematical uses!!) for all ^ to be replaced with ", which will end up generating proper Stata syntax.
(This is truly a brute force way of doing this, and is less dynamic in the case that there are subsequent changes to your generation list. All--apologies in advance for answering a question here advocating use of Excel :) )
You don't explain where the strings you want to add come from, but what is generally the best technique is explained at
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data-management/group-characteristics-for-subsets/index.html
Create an associative array of ids vs Fname,Lname
103 => JACK,MARTIN
104 => MICHAEL,JOHNSON
...
Replace
id => hash{id} ( fname & lname )
The efficiency of doing this will be taken care by the programming language used