Logo Questions Linux Laravel Mysql Ubuntu Git Menu
 

How to succinctly write a formula with many variables from a data frame?

Tags:

dataframe

r

glm

lm

People also ask

How many variables does the data frame contain?

Remember though, it is possible that they contain different types of data. To construct the planets data frame, we will use the data. frame() function and pass the vectors name , type , diameter , rotation , and rings as arguments. The data frame has 8 observations and 5 variables.


There is a special identifier that one can use in a formula to mean all the variables, it is the . identifier.

y <- c(1,4,6)
d <- data.frame(y = y, x1 = c(4,-1,3), x2 = c(3,9,8), x3 = c(4,-4,-2))
mod <- lm(y ~ ., data = d)

You can also do things like this, to use all variables but one (in this case x3 is excluded):

mod <- lm(y ~ . - x3, data = d)

Technically, . means all variables not already mentioned in the formula. For example

lm(y ~ x1 * x2 + ., data = d)

where . would only reference x3 as x1 and x2 are already in the formula.


A slightly different approach is to create your formula from a string. In the formula help page you will find the following example :

## Create a formula for a model with a large number of variables:
xnam <- paste("x", 1:25, sep="")
fmla <- as.formula(paste("y ~ ", paste(xnam, collapse= "+")))

Then if you look at the generated formula, you will get :

R> fmla
y ~ x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 + x8 + x9 + x10 + x11 + 
    x12 + x13 + x14 + x15 + x16 + x17 + x18 + x19 + x20 + x21 + 
    x22 + x23 + x24 + x25

Yes of course, just add the response y as first column in the dataframe and call lm() on it:

d2<-data.frame(y,d)
> d2
  y x1 x2 x3
1 1  4  3  4
2 4 -1  9 -4
3 6  3  8 -2
> lm(d2)

Call:
lm(formula = d2)

Coefficients:
(Intercept)           x1           x2           x3  
    -5.6316       0.7895       1.1579           NA  

Also, my information about R points out that assignment with <- is recommended over =.


An extension of juba's method is to use reformulate, a function which is explicitly designed for such a task.

## Create a formula for a model with a large number of variables:
xnam <- paste("x", 1:25, sep="")

reformulate(xnam, "y")
y ~ x1 + x2 + x3 + x4 + x5 + x6 + x7 + x8 + x9 + x10 + x11 + 
    x12 + x13 + x14 + x15 + x16 + x17 + x18 + x19 + x20 + x21 + 
    x22 + x23 + x24 + x25

For the example in the OP, the easiest solution here would be

# add y variable to data.frame d
d <- cbind(y, d)
reformulate(names(d)[-1], names(d[1]))
y ~ x1 + x2 + x3

or

mod <- lm(reformulate(names(d)[-1], names(d[1])), data=d)

Note that adding the dependent variable to the data.frame in d <- cbind(y, d) is preferred not only because it allows for the use of reformulate, but also because it allows for future use of the lm object in functions like predict.


I build this solution, reformulate does not take care if variable names have white spaces.

add_backticks = function(x) {
    paste0("`", x, "`")
}

x_lm_formula = function(x) {
    paste(add_backticks(x), collapse = " + ")
}

build_lm_formula = function(x, y){
    if (length(y)>1){
        stop("y needs to be just one variable")
    }
    as.formula(        
        paste0("`",y,"`", " ~ ", x_lm_formula(x))
    )
}

# Example
df <- data.frame(
    y = c(1,4,6), 
    x1 = c(4,-1,3), 
    x2 = c(3,9,8), 
    x3 = c(4,-4,-2)
    )

# Model Specification
columns = colnames(df)
y_cols = columns[1]
x_cols = columns[2:length(columns)]
formula = build_lm_formula(x_cols, y_cols)
formula
# output
# "`y` ~ `x1` + `x2` + `x3`"

# Run Model
lm(formula = formula, data = df)
# output
Call:
    lm(formula = formula, data = df)

Coefficients:
    (Intercept)           x1           x2           x3  
        -5.6316       0.7895       1.1579           NA  

```