Mean of variable by two factors

Question

I have the following data:

a <- c(1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2)
b <- c(2,4,6,8,2,3,4,1)
c <- factor(c(\"A\",\"B\",\"A\",\"B\",\"A\",\"B\",\"A\",\"B\"))
df <- data         


        

Answer 1

The library plyr is very helpful for stuff like this

library(plyr)
new.df <- ddply(df, c("method", "sp"), summarise,
                mean.length=mean(length),
                max.length=max(length),
                n.obs=length(length))

gives you

> new.df
  method sp mean.length max.length n.obs
1      A  1           4          6     2
2      A  2           3          4     2
3      B  1           6          8     2
4      B  2           2          3     2

More examples at http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/plyr/docs/ddply.