Hi Michael, This can be accomplished using the basic extract and assign functions:
dat <- structure(list(Date = structure(1:10, .Label = c("10-01-01", "10-01-02", "10-01-03", "10-01-04", "10-01-05", "10-01-06", "10-01-07", "10-01-08", "10-01-09", "10-01-10"), class = "factor"), Waterhead = c(100, 105, 101, 99, 85, 200, 199, 195, 185, 170)), .Names = c("Date", "Waterhead"), row.names = c(NA, -10L), class = "data.frame") dat[1:5, "Waterhead"] <- dat[1:5, "Waterhead"] - 115 You may find it helpful to work through "An Introduction to R" (http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html) and/or one or more of the fine contributed introductory tutorials (http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html). Best, Ista On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 3:49 PM, michael.hopgood <michael.hopg...@mrm.se> wrote: > > Dear R family, > I am a relative newbie and have been dabbling with R for a little while. > Simple things really, but my employers are beginning to see the benefits of > using R instead of excel. We have a remote monitoring station measuring > groundwater levels. We download the date as a .csv file and up until now, > we have been using excel to analyse the data. It’s been a hassle trying to > wrestle with that damn program as my boss wants to do things that excel was > never meant to do, so I’ve convinced my boss to give R a chance. It’s been > a steep learning curve, but I’m fairly confident I can reduce the amount of > labour involved in producing and improving the graphs we show our clients. > > The groundwater levels are measured by pressure sensors lowered into the > monitoring wells. After a certain time, the sensors were lowered further > into the well, thus creating a disparity in the measurements. > > The data frame I import into R looks something like this: > Date Waterhead (mm) Parameter 1 Paramater 2, etc. > 10-01-01 100 > 10-01-02 105 > 10-01-03 101 > 10-01-04 99 > 10-01-05 85 > 10-01-06 200 # <- Sensor lowered# > 10-01-07 199 > 10-01-08 195 > 10-01-09 185 > 10-01-10 170 > > For example, on the 10-10-06, the sensor was lowered by 115 mm. > When I download the csv file, I download the data from the beginning of the > measurement period. I then need to adjust the height by 115 mm to account > for the lowering of the parameter. My question to you is how do I do that > in R? > I am after a formula or a manipulation that selects the first five > measurements of a column in the data frame and adds a fixed amount. This is > something that is added everytime I download the csv file and import it into > R so that when I display my data, it is based on the following data frame: > > Date Waterhead (mm) > 10-01-01 215 > 10-01-02 220 > 10-01-03 216 > 10-01-04 214 > 10-01-05 200 > 10-01-06 200 > 10-01-07 199 > 10-01-08 195 > 10-01-09 185 > 10-01-10 170 > > In short, I want to select a fixed number of rows from my data frame, add a > constant to the rows of one of the columns, and insert the new values into > their respective rows without affecting the subsequent rows. I hope I have > produced a reproducible example, I have been searching high and low for a > solution, but have come up against a brick wall. I feel I have read > something that tackles this some time in the past, but can’t find it again. > Thanks in advance! > > Sincerely, > Michael Hopgood > MRM Konsult AB > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Manipulation-tp3221260p3221260.html > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Ista Zahn Graduate student University of Rochester Department of Clinical and Social Psychology http://yourpsyche.org ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.