r - Reshaping a data frame with more than one measure variable

Question

I'm using a data frame similar to this one:

df<-data.frame(student=c(rep(1,5),rep(2,5)), month=c(1:5,1:5),  
      quiz1p1=seq(20,20.9,0.1),quiz1p2=seq(30,30.9,0.1),  
      quiz2p1=seq(80,80.9,0.1),quiz2p2=seq(90,90.9,0.1))      

print(df)  

   student month quiz1p1 quiz1p2 quiz2p1 quiz2p2  
1     1     1    20.0    30.0    80.0    90.0  
2     1     2    20.1    30.1    80.1    90.1  
3     1     3    20.2    30.2    80.2    90.2  
4     1     4    20.3    30.3    80.3    90.3
5     1     5    20.4    30.4    80.4    90.4
6     2     1    20.5    30.5    80.5    90.5
7     2     2    20.6    30.6    80.6    90.6
8     2     3    20.7    30.7    80.7    90.7
9     2     4    20.8    30.8    80.8    90.8
10    2     5    20.9    30.9    80.9    90.9

Describing grades received by students during five months – in two quizzes divided into two parts each.

I need to get the two quizzes into separate rows – so that each student in each month will have two rows, one for each quiz, and two columns – for each part of the quiz. When I melt the table:

melt.data.frame(df, c("student", "month"))

I get the two parts of the quiz in separate lines too.

dcast(dfL,student+month~variable)

of course gets me right back where I started, and I can't find a way to cast the table back in to the required form. Is there a way to make the melt command function something like:

melt.data.frame(df, measure.var1=c("quiz1p1","quiz2p1"), 
                measure.var2=c("quiz1p2","quiz2p2"))  

Answer 1

Here's how you could do this with reshape(), from base R:

df2 <- reshape(df, direction="long",
               idvar = 1:2, varying = list(c(3,5), c(4,6)),
               v.names = c("p1", "p2"), times = c("quiz1", "quiz2"))

## Checking the output    
rbind(head(df2, 3), tail(df2, 3))
#           student month  time   p1   p2
# 1.1.quiz1       1     1 quiz1 20.0 30.0
# 1.2.quiz1       1     2 quiz1 20.1 30.1
# 1.3.quiz1       1     3 quiz1 20.2 30.2
# 2.3.quiz2       2     3 quiz2 80.7 90.7
# 2.4.quiz2       2     4 quiz2 80.8 90.8
# 2.5.quiz2       2     5 quiz2 80.9 90.9

You can also use column names (instead of column numbers) for idvar and varying. It's more verbose, but seems like better practice to me:

## The same operation as above, using just column *names*
df2 <- reshape(df, direction="long", idvar=c("student", "month"),
               varying = list(c("quiz1p1", "quiz2p1"), 
                              c("quiz1p2", "quiz2p2")), 
               v.names = c("p1", "p2"), times = c("quiz1", "quiz2"))