select maximum row value by group

Question

I\'ve been trying to do this with my data by looking at other posts, but I keep getting an error. My data new looks like this:

id  year    name          


        

Answer 1

Just use split:

df <- do.call(rbind, lapply(split(df, df$id),
  function(subdf) subdf[which.max(subdf$year)[1], ]))

For example,

df <- data.frame(id = rep(1:10, each = 3), year = round(runif(30,0,10)) + 1980, gdp = round(runif(30, 40, 70)))
print(head(df))
#   id year gdp
# 1  1 1990  49
# 2  1 1981  47
# 3  1 1987  69
# 4  2 1985  57
# 5  2 1989  41
# 6  2 1988  54

df <- do.call(rbind, lapply(split(df, df$id), function(subdf) subdf[which.max(subdf$year)[1], ]))
print(head(df))
#    id year gdp
# 1   1 1990  49
# 2   2 1989  41
# 3   3 1989  55
# 4   4 1988  62
# 5   5 1989  48
# 6   6 1990  41