Dimitri, It isn't clear to me exactly what you are trying to do, but this might be closer. Note the stringsAsFactors argument I added to data.frame: I don't think you are likely to want factors for this application. Also, it's a bad idea to create a variable named c since that is the name of a function.
# my reference data frame: myref<-data.frame(a=c("ba ba","ca ca","da da", "lake lake, a", "lake lake, b","lake of","lama ca, a","lama ca, b","ma ma"), b=c("ba ba","ca ca","OTHER", "lake lake, a", "lake lake, b","lake of","lama ca, a","lama ca, b","OTHER"), stringsAsFactors=FALSE) # my data: temp<-data.frame(c=c(rep("ba ba",3),rep("ca ca",3),rep("da da",3),rep("lake lake, a",3), rep("lake lake, b",3),rep("lake of",3),rep("lama ca, a",3),rep("lama ca ,b",3),rep("ma ma",3)), stringsAsFactors=FALSE) newdata <- merge(myref, temp, by.x="a", by.y="c", all.x=FALSE, all.y=TRUE) Sarah On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:17 AM, Dimitri Liakhovitski <dimitri.liakhovit...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hello! > > Below is my exmample. "myref" is my reference data frame with columns a and b. > "temp" is my data with column c analogous to column a in "myref". > I am trying to create a new variable b - in "temp" - that matches > values from b in "myref" to values in c. If you look at the resulting > data frame (temp - at the bottom), you'll notice that rows 19-24 are > incorrect. > How could one fix it? > Thanks a lot! > > # my reference data frame: > a=c("ba ba","ca ca","da da", "lake lake, a", "lake lake, b","lake > of","lama ca, a","lama ca, b","ma ma") > b=c("ba ba","ca ca","OTHER", "lake lake, a", "lake lake, b","lake > of","lama ca, a","lama ca, b","OTHER") > myref<-data.frame(a=a, b=b) > (myref) > > # my data: > c<-c(rep("ba ba",3),rep("ca ca",3),rep("da da",3),rep("lake lake, a",3), > rep("lake lake, b",3),rep("lake of",3),rep("lama ca, a",3),rep("lama > ca ,b",3),rep("ma ma",3)) > temp<-data.frame(c=c) > (temp) > > ### Matching: > temp$b<-myref[temp$c,"b"] > (temp) > > -- > Dimitri Liakhovitski > Ninah Consulting > www.ninah.com > -- Sarah Goslee http://www.functionaldiversity.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.