R: Apply a Function Over a “Ragged” Array

tapply {base} | R Documentation

## Apply a Function Over a “Ragged” Array

### Description

Apply a function to each cell of a ragged array, that is to each (non-empty) group of values given by a unique combination of the levels of certain factors.

### Usage

    tapply(X, INDEX, FUN = NULL, ..., simplify = TRUE)

### Arguments

`X` | an atomic object, typically a vector.
`INDEX` | list of factors, each of same length as `X`. The elements are coerced to factors by `as.factor`.
`FUN` | the function to be applied. In the case of functions like `+`, `%*%`, etc., the function name must be quoted. If `FUN` is `NULL`, tapply returns a vector which can be used to subscript the multi-way array `tapply` normally produces.
`...` | optional arguments to `FUN`: the Note section.
`simplify` | If `FALSE`, `tapply` always returns an array of mode `"list"`. If `TRUE` (the default), then if `FUN` always returns a scalar, `tapply` returns an array with the mode of the scalar.

### Value

When `FUN` is present, `tapply` calls `FUN` for each cell that has any data in it. If `FUN` returns a single atomic value for each such cell (e.g., functions `mean` or `var`) and when `simplify` is `TRUE`, `tapply` returns a multi-way array containing the values, and `NA` for the empty cells. The array has the same number of dimensions as `INDEX` has components; the number of levels in a dimension is the number of levels (`nlevels()`) in the corresponding component of `INDEX`.
Note that contrary to S, `simplify = TRUE` always returns an array, possibly 1-dimensional.
If `FUN` does not return a single atomic value, `tapply` returns an array of mode `list` whose components are the values of the individual calls to `FUN`, i.e., the result is a list with a `dim` attribute.
When there is an array answer, its `dimnames` are named by the names of `INDEX` and are based on the levels of the grouping factors (possibly after coercion).
For a list result, the elements corresponding to empty cells are `NULL`.

### Note

Optional arguments to `FUN` supplied by the `...` argument are not divided into cells. It is therefore inappropriate for `FUN` to expect additional arguments with the same length as `X`.

### References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

### See Also

the convenience functions `by` and `aggregate` (using `tapply`); `apply`, `lapply` with its versions `sapply` and `mapply`.

### Examples

    require(stats)
    groups <- as.factor(rbinom(32, n = 5, prob = 0.4))
    tapply(groups, groups, length) #- is almost the same as
    table(groups)

    ## contingency table from data.frame : array with named dimnames
    tapply(warpbreaks$breaks, warpbreaks[,-1], sum)
    tapply(warpbreaks$breaks, warpbreaks[, 3, drop = FALSE], sum)

    n <- 17; fac <- factor(rep(1:3, length = n), levels = 1:5)
    table(fac)
    tapply(1:n, fac, sum)
    tapply(1:n, fac, sum, simplify = FALSE)
    tapply(1:n, fac, range)
    tapply(1:n, fac, quantile)

    ## example of ... argument: find quarterly means
    tapply(presidents, cycle(presidents), mean, na.rm = TRUE)

    ind <- list(c(1, 2, 2), c("A", "A", "B"))
    table(ind)
    tapply(1:3, ind) #-> the split vector
    tapply(1:3, ind, sum)

[Package base version 2.6.2 Index]