David, Thanks for the suggestion. Now I have worked out a general solution.
Assume "a" and "b" are two data frames with same dimensions 1. Call identical(a,b) to get an overall assessment. If you get a FALSE 2. Call which(mapply(identical,unlist(a),unlist(b))==FALSE), you will get a result like TIME5 85 which means, the row 5 and the column with name "TIME" is different. This also works for missing values. Thanks for everyone. Jun Shen from Millipore On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 9:08 AM, David Winsemius <dwinsem...@comcast.net>wrote: > > On Apr 8, 2010, at 9:47 AM, Jun Shen wrote: > > Dear David, Erik and Charles, >> >> Thank you for your input. Both mapply() and which() can do the job. Just >> one >> exception. If there is a missing value as NA in the data frame "a" and a >> data point (either numerical or character) in the corresponding position >> of >> "b", then mapply() only returns NA for that position rather than "FALSE", >> and which() cannot pick up that position either. Thanks again. >> > > > You seem to have changed the programming challenge from identification to > replicating identical(). If so then you can get closer with wrapping > isTRUE(all() around the mapply("==" , attributes( ...), ...) step, and > wrap the "==" call in isTRUE(all(.)) > > > isTRUE(all(mapply("==", df1, df2)) ) > [1] FALSE since all(c(NA, TRUE, TRUE)) == NA and isTRUE(NA) == FALSE > > -- > David. > > > > >> Jun >> >> On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 10:46 PM, Charles C. Berry <cbe...@tajo.ucsd.edu >> >wrote: >> >> On Wed, 7 Apr 2010, Jun Shen wrote: >>> >>> Dear all, >>> >>>> >>>> I understand identical (a,b) will tell me if a and b are exactly the >>>> same >>>> or >>>> not. But what if they are different, is there anyway to tell which >>>> element(s) are different? Thanks. >>>> >>>> >>> which( a != b, arr.ind = TRUE) >>> >>> HTH, >>> >>> Chuck >>> >>> >>>> Jun >>>> >>>> >>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >>>> >>>> ______________________________________________ >>>> 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. >>>> >>>> >>>> Charles C. Berry (858) 534-2098 >>> Dept of Family/Preventive >>> Medicine >>> E mailto:cbe...@tajo.ucsd.edu UC San Diego >>> http://famprevmed.ucsd.edu/faculty/cberry/ La Jolla, San Diego >>> 92093-0901 >>> >>> >>> >>> >> [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >> >> ______________________________________________ >> 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. >> > > David Winsemius, MD > West Hartford, CT > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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.