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perlrowsmultiple-columnsnames

Perl: Merging columns with the same names and keeping row names

What I essentially want to do is take a table like this one, where the top row contains columns names:

A    B    B    B
a    9    8    9
a    6    5    3
b    4    4    5
b    8    3    4

and merge the columns with the same names while keeping the corresponding row names (contained in the first column) like so:

A    B
a    9
a    8
a    9
a    6
a    5
a    3
b    4
b    4
b    5
b    8
b    3
b    4

Any help would be appreciated.

Solution

  • What you are trying to do is 'melt' a table. I've used a library for this in R but not in Perl. There is a Perl module called Data::Table which does have a melt function for multidimensional lists.