I have a dataframe in which a string variable is an informal list of elements, that can be split on a symbol. I would like to make operaion on these elements on the basis of another dataset.
e.g. task: Calculate the sum of the elements
df_1 <- data.frame(element=c(1:2),groups=c("A,B,C","A,D"))
df_2 <- data.frame(groups=c("A","B","C","D"), values=c(1:4))
desired <- data.frame(element=c(1:2),groups=c("A,B,C","A,D"),sum=c(6,5))
An option would be to split the 'groups' by the delimiter , to expand the rows with separate_rows, do a join with the key/val dataset ('df_2'), groued by 'element', get the sum of 'values'
library(tidyverse)
df_1 %>%
separate_rows(groups) %>%
left_join(df_2) %>%
group_by(element) %>%
summarise(groups = toString(groups), sum = sum(values))
# A tibble: 2 x 3
# element groups sum
# <int> <chr> <int>
#1 1 A, B, C 6
#2 2 A, D 5
Or another option with base R would be to use a named key/value vector 'nm1') to change the values in the splitted list elements, sum and assign it to new column in 'df_1'
nm1 <- setNames(df_2$values, df_2$groups)
df_1$sum <- sapply(strsplit(as.character(df_1$groups), ","), function(x) sum(nm1[x]))