HI, You can get the results you wanted by: c=list(c(1985,1982,1984),c(1988,1980),c(1983,1984),c(1988,1998,1993),c(1993,1994,1998)) b1<-list(1988,1989,1990,1991,1992) for(i in 1:length(b1)){ anew[[i]]<-list() anew[[i]]<-b1[[i]]-c[[i]] } anew [[1]] [1] 3 6 4
[[2]] [1] 1 9 ------- ------- But, if you wanted both both a list and a vector in a dataframe "a" It is possible: b<-c(1988,1989,1990,1991,1992) c=list(c(1985,1982,1984),c(1988,1980),c(1983,1984),c(1988,1998,1993),c(1993,1994,1998)) a<-data.frame(b,c1=cbind(c)) a # b c #1 1988 1985, 1982, 1984 #2 1989 1988, 1980 #3 1990 1983, 1984 #4 1991 1988, 1998, 1993 #5 1992 1993, 1994, 1998 anew1<-list() for(i in 1:nrow(a)){ anew1[[i]]<-list() anew1[[i]]<-a$b[i]-a$c[[i]] } > anew1 [[1]] [1] 3 6 4 [[2]] [1] 1 9 [[3]] [1] 7 6 [[4]] [1] 3 -7 -2 [[5]] [1] -1 -2 -6 A.K. ----- Original Message ----- From: jimi adams <jad...@american.edu> To: r-help@r-project.org Cc: Sent: Thursday, August 9, 2012 4:42 PM Subject: [R] indexing in data frames I'm still not fully understanding exactly how R is handling data frames, but am getting closer. Any help with this one will likely go a long way in getting me there. Let's say I have a data frame, let's call it "a". Within that data frame i have two variables, let's call them "b" and "c", where "b" is a single numeric value per observation, while "c" is a LIST of numeric values. What I want to be able to do is perform an operation on each element in "c" by the single element in "b". So, for example, if I wanted to subtract each element in "c" from the scalar in "b". For example, if i had > a$b [1] 1988 [2] 1989 … & > a$c [[1]] [1] 1985 1982 1984 [[2]] [1] 1988 1980 … I'm looking for a result of: a$new [[1]] [1] 3 6 4 [[2]] [1] 1 9 … I've tried a few different things, none of which have the desired result. Any help appreciated. thanks! jimi adams Assistant Professor Department of Sociology American University e: jad...@american.edu w: jimiadams.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. ______________________________________________ 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.