Question

I have a small question about apply functions.
For example I have:

l <- list(a = data.frame(A1=rep(10,5),B1=c(1,1,1,2,2),C1=c(5,10,20,7,30)),
          b = data.frame(A1=rep(20,5),B1=c(3,3,4,4,4),C1=c(3,5,10,20,30)))

I want to find a minimum C1 for each B1. The result should be

$a
  A1 B1 C1
  10  1  5
  10  2  7

$b
  A1 B1 C1
  20  3  3
  20  4  10

I know how to do it with ‘for’, but it have to be a easier way with ‘lapply’, but I couldn’t make it works.

Please help

Answer 1

Here’s another approach that matches your desired output:

lapply(l, function(x) {
  temp <- ave(x[["C1"]], x["B1"], FUN = min)
  x[x[["C1"]] == temp, ]
})
# $a
#   A1 B1 C1
# 1 10  1  5
# 4 10  2  7
# 
# $b
#   A1 B1 C1
# 1 20  3  3
# 3 20  4 10