Error in aggregate.data.frame(as.data.frame(x), ...) : arguments must have same length

Question

Problem :

I am facing below error and I am unable to understand the meaning of the error. All my variable names are correct and there are no typing errors. Does anybody faced this issue before any solution on it?

My erroneous code :

datNewagg <- aggregate (dataNew, by = list('x', 'y', 'z', 'a', 'ab'), FUN = mean)  

It gives following error :

Error in aggregate.data.frame(datNew, by = list("x", "y",  : arguments must have same length

Answer 1

Assuming these are not a typing mistakes the x, y, z, a and ab are the names of columns in the dataNew.

Some functions such as subset will let you specify the column names of their objects directly. But the aggregate function does not allow that. So the columns of your dataNew which are listed in the by argument must be clearly referred to as such as given in blow code snippet:

datNewagg <- aggregate(dataNew,

    by = list(

        x = dataNew$x,

        y = dataNew$y,

        z = dataNew$z,

        a = dataNew$a,

        ab = dataNew$ab),

    FUN = mean) 

 

OR

By using the data.frame as the by argument works for me try following :

datNewagg <- aggregate (dataNew, by = dataNew[c('x', 'y', 'z', 'a', 'ab')], FUN = mean)

I want to say please do not give the by argument, just give the name of the arguments and also give the data.frame with columns as these arguments.

Answer 2

Few functions, like subset, will approve you to seclude column names of the object they're performing on directly. The aggregate function doesn't, hence any columns of dataNew listed in the by argument require to particularly referred to as such. Attempt this:

datNewagg <- aggregate(dataNew,
    by = list(
        x = dataNew$x,
        y = dataNew$y,
        z = dataNew$z,
        a = dataNew$a,
        ab = dataNew$ab),
    FUN = mean) 

I used obtain this error.
The easy solution to remove this error is to write all the variables along with their dataset name like "ds_name$var_name".
I'm not certain what is the dataset name is your case, so I'll give you another same example.

curYearRev <-aggregate(hr$Year.Total, by = list(hr$Hospital_ID,hr$District_ID,hr$Instrument_ID) , FUN = sum)

Here, "hr" is the dataset name and "Year.Total", "Hospital_ID", "District_ID", "Instrument_ID" are the variables in "hr" dataset.

Check class(dataNew). In case it's not a data.frame, this dataNew <- data.frame(dataNew) prior aggregation must solve the error or

datNewagg <- aggregate (data.frame(dataNew), by = list('x', 'y', 'z', 'a', 'ab'),

You can inspect in case aggregate method is supported by methods().

# stars 0.2-0
> library(stars)
> methods(class= "stars")
 [1] [              [<-            adrop          aperm          as.data.frame  c              coerce        
 [8] cut            dim            dimnames       dimnames<-     filter         image          initialize    
[15] is.na          Math           merge          Ops            plot           print          show          
[22] slotsFromS3    split          st_apply       st_as_sf       st_as_sfc      st_as_stars    st_bbox       
[29] st_coordinates st_crop        st_crs         st_crs<-       st_dimensions  st_transform   st_write  

Ta-da! stars 0.3-0 is on CRAN today (25/FEB/2019).

# stars 0.3-0
> library(stars)
> methods(class= "stars")
 [1] $<-            [              [<-            adrop          aggregate      aperm         
 [7] as.data.frame  c              coerce         cut            dim            dimnames      
[13] dimnames<-     image          initialize     is.na          Math           merge         
[19] Ops            plot           print          show           slotsFromS3    split         
[25] st_apply       st_area        st_as_sf       st_as_sfc      st_as_stars    st_bbox       
[31] st_coordinates st_crop        st_crs         st_crs<-       st_dimensions  st_geometry   
[37] st_redimension st_transform   write_stars 

You can view aggreagte is listed. 

By the way, in case you include tidyverse, the list expands like:

> library(tidyverse)
> library(stars)
> methods(class= "stars")
 [1] $<-            [              [<-            adrop          aggregate      aperm         
 [7] as.data.frame  as.tbl_cube    c              coerce         cut            dim           
[13] dimnames       dimnames<-     filter         image          initialize     is.na         
[19] Math           merge          mutate         Ops            plot           print         
[25] pull           select         show           slice          slotsFromS3    split         
[31] st_apply       st_area        st_as_sf       st_as_sfc      st_as_stars    st_bbox       
[37] st_coordinates st_crop        st_crs         st_crs<-       st_dimensions  st_geometry   
[43] st_redimension st_transform   write_stars