rdata.tabletsibbletimetk

Is there a data.table way of filling in gaps of time periods?


Is there an elegant way of filling in missing time periods as timetk::pad_by_time and tsibble::fill_gaps in data.table?

The data might look like this

library(data.table)
data<-data.table(Date = c("2020-01-01","2020-01-01","2020-01-01","2020-02-01","2020-02-01","2020-03-01","2020-03-01","2020-03-01"),
             Card = c(1,2,3,1,3,1,2,3),
             A = rnorm(8)
)

The implicitly missing observation of card 2 at 2020-02-01.

In tsibble package, you can do the following

library(tsibble)
data <- data[, .(Date = yearmonth(ymd(Date)), 
               Card = as.character(Card),
              A= as.numeric(A))]
data<-as_tsibble(data, key = Card, index = Date)
data<-fill_gaps(data)

In timetk package, you can do the following

library(timetk)
data <- data[, .(Date = ymd(Date), 
             Card = as.character(Card),
             A= as.numeric(A))]
data<-data %>%
  group_by(Card) %>%
  pad_by_time(Date, .by = "month") %>%
  ungroup()

Solution

  • Just data.table:

    If no key is set, then

    data2 <- data[CJ(Date, Card, unique = TRUE), on = .(Date, Card)]
    data2
    #          Date  Card           A
    #        <char> <num>       <num>
    # 1: 2020-01-01     1  1.37095845
    # 2: 2020-01-01     2 -0.56469817
    # 3: 2020-01-01     3  0.36312841
    # 4: 2020-02-01     1  0.63286260
    # 5: 2020-02-01     2          NA
    # 6: 2020-02-01     3  0.40426832
    # 7: 2020-03-01     1 -0.10612452
    # 8: 2020-03-01     2  1.51152200
    # 9: 2020-03-01     3 -0.09465904
    

    (updated/simplified, thanks to @sindri_baldur!)

    If a key is set, then you can use @Frank's method:

    data2 <- data[ do.call(CJ, c(mget(key(data)), unique = TRUE)), ]
    

    And from here, you can use nafill as desired, perhaps

    data2[, A := nafill(A, type = "locf"), by = .(Card)]
    #          Date  Card           A
    #        <char> <num>       <num>
    # 1: 2020-01-01     1  1.37095845
    # 2: 2020-01-01     2 -0.56469817
    # 3: 2020-01-01     3  0.36312841
    # 4: 2020-02-01     1  0.63286260
    # 5: 2020-02-01     2 -0.56469817
    # 6: 2020-02-01     3  0.40426832
    # 7: 2020-03-01     1 -0.10612452
    # 8: 2020-03-01     2  1.51152200
    # 9: 2020-03-01     3 -0.09465904
    

    (How to fill is based on your knowledge of the context of the data; it might just as easily be by=.(Date), or some form of imputation.)


    Update: the above does an expansion of possible combinations, which might fill outside of a particular Card's span, in which case one might see:

    data <- data[-1,]
    data[CJ(Date, Card, unique = TRUE), on = .(Date, Card)]
    #          Date  Card           A
    #        <char> <num>       <num>
    # 1: 2020-01-01     1          NA
    # 2: 2020-01-01     2 -0.42225588
    # 3: 2020-01-01     3 -0.12235017
    # 4: 2020-02-01     1  0.18819303
    # 5: 2020-02-01     2          NA
    # 6: 2020-02-01     3  0.11916096
    # 7: 2020-03-01     1 -0.02509255
    # 8: 2020-03-01     2  0.10807273
    # 9: 2020-03-01     3 -0.48543524
    

    I think there are two approaches to this:

    1. Doing the above code and then removing leading (and trailing) NAs per group:

      data[CJ(Date, Card, unique = TRUE), on = .(Date, Card)
        ][, .SD[ !is.na(A) | !seq_len(.N) %in% c(1, .N),], by = Card]
      #     Card       Date           A
      #    <num>     <char>       <num>
      # 1:     1 2020-02-01  0.18819303
      # 2:     1 2020-03-01 -0.02509255
      # 3:     2 2020-01-01 -0.42225588
      # 4:     2 2020-02-01          NA
      # 5:     2 2020-03-01  0.10807273
      # 6:     3 2020-01-01 -0.12235017
      # 7:     3 2020-02-01  0.11916096
      # 8:     3 2020-03-01 -0.48543524
      
    2. Completely different approach (assuming Date-class, not strictly required above):

      data[,Date := as.Date(Date)]
      data[data[, .(Date = do.call(seq, c(as.list(range(Date)), by = "month"))), 
                by = .(Card)],
           on = .(Date, Card)]
      #          Date  Card           A
      #        <Date> <num>       <num>
      # 1: 2020-01-01     2 -0.42225588
      # 2: 2020-02-01     2          NA
      # 3: 2020-03-01     2  0.10807273
      # 4: 2020-01-01     3 -0.12235017
      # 5: 2020-02-01     3  0.11916096
      # 6: 2020-03-01     3 -0.48543524
      # 7: 2020-02-01     1  0.18819303
      # 8: 2020-03-01     1 -0.02509255