I’d like to dynamically assign which columns to subtract from each other. I’ve read around and looks like I need to use all_of, and maybe across (How to subtract one column from multiple columns in a dataframe in R using dplyr, How to you use objects in dplyr filter?). I can get it working for one variable in a mutate phrase (e.g. mutate(y = all_of(x))), but I can’t seem to do even simple calculations using two. Here’s a simplified example of what I want to do:
var1 <- c("Sepal.Length")
var2 <- c("Sepal.Width")
result <- iris %>%
mutate(calculation = all_of(var1) - all_of(var2))
We may use .data to subset the column as a vector. The all_of/any_of are used along with across to loop across the columns
library(dplyr)
iris %>%
mutate(calculation = .data[[var1]] - .data[[var2]])%>%
head
-output
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species calculation
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
Or may also use cur_data()
iris %>%
head %>%
mutate(calculation = cur_data()[[var1]] - cur_data()[[var2]])
-output
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species calculation
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
Or another option is to pass both the variables in across, and then reduce with -
library(purrr)
iris %>%
head %>%
mutate(calculation = reduce(across(all_of(c(var1, var2))), `-`))
-output
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species calculation
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
Or could convert to symbol and evaluate (!!)
iris %>%
head %>%
mutate(calculation = !! rlang::sym(var1) - !! rlang::sym(var2))
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species calculation
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
Or if we want to use all_of in across, just subset the column with [[
iris %>%
head %>%
mutate(calculation = across(all_of(var1))[[1]] -
across(all_of(var2))[[1]])
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species calculation
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
The reason we need to subset is because, across by default will update the original column when the .names is not present. The calculation will be a data.frame with a single column
out <- iris %>%
head %>%
mutate(calculation = across(all_of(var1)) -
across(all_of(var2)))
out
Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species Sepal.Length
1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.6
2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.9
3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa 1.5
4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa 1.5
5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa 1.4
6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa 1.5
str(out)
data.frame': 6 obs. of 6 variables:
$ Sepal.Length: num 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4
$ Sepal.Width : num 3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9
$ Petal.Length: num 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7
$ Petal.Width : num 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4
$ Species : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1
$ calculation :'data.frame': 6 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ Sepal.Length: num 1.6 1.9 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.5