making the first row a header in a dataframe in r

Question

I've seen this asked here: Create header of a dataframe from the first row in the data frame

and here: assign headers based on existing row in dataframe in R

and the solutions offered don't work for me.

When I transpose my dataframe (p1), the header of DF.transpose (p1t) is something new and annoying. and the first row of the p1t is what I would like to use as the header, I tried:

    colnames(p1t) = p1t[1, ]

and it doesn't work!

here is how the original df appears:

    File Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT
    sub0001            0,446222          2,524,804            0,272959                    1,281,349
    sub0002           1,032,688          2,671,048           1,033,278                    1,217,817

And here is how the transpose appears:

    row.names                            V1         V2
    File                            sub0001    sub0002
    Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM            0,446222  1,032,688
    Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM            2,524,804  2,671,048
    Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL   0,272959  1,033,278
    Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT  1,281,349  1,217,817
    Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMminus_REAL  0,142739  1,405,100
    Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMminus_FICT 1,515,577 -1,990,458

How can I make "File", "sub0001","sub0002" etc... as the header?

Thanks!

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '15 at 08:11

Works for me (with a little trick).

x <- read.table(text = "File Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT
    sub0001            0,446222          2,524,804            0,272959                    1,281,349
    sub0002           1,032,688          2,671,048           1,033,278                    1,217,817",
                header = TRUE)

x <- t(x)
colnames(x) <- x[1, ]
x <- x[-1, ]
x

                             sub0001     sub0002    
Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM          "0,446222"  "1,032,688"
Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM           "2,524,804" "2,671,048"
Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL "0,272959"  "1,033,278"
Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT "1,281,349" "1,217,817"

i got it working. It seems that the problem is that transposing my DF returns a matrix, which I was then converting into a DF. If I run your code on the matrix then it works. Thanks! :) — pd441, Jun 19 '15 at 15:28
@stevezissou feel free to accept the answer as the correct answer. — Roman Luštrik, Jun 20 '15 at 06:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 15 '20 at 18:37

We can make use of transpose from data.table

library(janitor)
data.table::transpose(x, keep.names = 'File') %>%
           row_to_names(1)
#                          File   sub0001   sub0002
#2          Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM  0,446222 1,032,688
#3           Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM 2,524,804 2,671,048
#4 Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL  0,272959 1,033,278
#5 Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT 1,281,349 1,217,817

data

x <- structure(list(File = structure(1:2, .Label = c("sub0001", "sub0002"
), class = "factor"), Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_FAM = structure(1:2, .Label = c("0,446222", 
"1,032,688"), class = "factor"), Fp1.PD_LongSOA_FAM = structure(1:2, .Label = c("2,524,804", 
"2,671,048"), class = "factor"), Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_REAL = structure(1:2, .Label = c("0,272959", 
"1,033,278"), class = "factor"), Fp1.PD_ShortSOA_SEMplus_FICT = structure(2:1, .Label = c("1,217,817", 
"1,281,349"), class = "factor")), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA, 
-2L))

making the first row a header in a dataframe in r

2 Answers2

data