[R-Forge #5222] 'not found' when DT[, list(sum(non-.SD-col), lapply(.SD,mean)), by=..., .SDcols=...]

[arunsrinivasan]

Submitted by: Matt Weller; Assigned to: Nobody; R-Forge link

When using .SDcols (for the purpose of applying a function to multiple columns) I cannot reference other columns in the original table (v1) using the following syntax:

dt = data.table(grp=c(2,3,3,1,1,2,3), v1=1:7, v2=7:1, v3=10:16)
dt.out = dt[, c(v1 = sum(v1),  lapply(.SD,mean)), by = grp, .SDcols = v2:v3]
# Error in `[.data.table`(dt, , list(v1 = sum(v1), lapply(.SD, mean)), by = grp,  : 
#   object 'v1' not found

A similar error happens when I use c instead of list, clearly the column v1 cannot be accessed within the j clause.

I resorted to the following code which includes column v1, even though I do not want that to be included in the lapply portion, having to drop it after computation.

sd.cols = c("v1","v2", "v3")
dt.out = dt[, c(sum.v1 = sum(v1), lapply(.SD,mean)), by = grp, .SDcols = sd.cols]

According to eddi on Stackoverflow this is a bug and he has asked me to report it. I cannot provide much more detail as I'm not exactly sure which part he thinks was a bug, looking at the accepted answer by Arun and their ensuing discussion will highlight where but the problem lies.

Here is the relevant SO post.

[arunsrinivasan]

Another post to update: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/27755518/data-table-sd-lapply-multiple-columns-in-argument

[MichaelChirico]

Bit late, but adding this question of mine to the pile

[jangorecki]

I didn't even think about it as a bug, usually I provide additional required fields to .SDcols and later in j I use .SD[, !"total", with=FALSE] to exclude unwanted column.

[MichaelChirico]

That's another good workaround, I wonder the performance difference vis-a-vis using dt$total. And yes, this sort of dances the line between FR and bug, IMO.

[DavidArenburg]

Bumping this up again. Looks like this could be a very important fix. this question seem to be related to and could be potentially solved via DT[, (deltaColsNewNames) := lapply(.SD, normalDelta, price), .SDcols = deltaColsNames]

[franknarf1]

Here's another simple case where this would be useful: http://stackoverflow.com/a/32498711/1191259

[rentrop]

Here's another simple case that suffers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/32944060/using-data-table-to-calculate-new-columns/32944519#32944519

[franknarf1]

Another to update when fixed: http://stackoverflow.com/q/32915770/1191259