How to programmatically create binary columns based on a categorical variable in data.table?

Question

I have a big (12 million rows) data.table which looks like this:

library(data.table)
set.seed(123)
dt <         


        

Answer 1

For small data sets the table function seems to be more efficient, but on large datasets dcast seems to be the most efficient and convenient option.

TableFunction <- function(){
    df <- as.data.frame.matrix(table(dt$id, dt$y))
    df[df > 1] <- 1
    df <- cbind(id = as.numeric(row.names(df)), df)
    setDT(df)
}


AnsFunction <- function(){
    ans = data.table(id = unique(dt$id))[, unique(dt$y) := 0L][]
    dt[, {set(ans, i=id, j=unique(y), value=1L); NULL}, by=id]
}

dcastFunction <- function(){
    df <-dcast.data.table(dt, id ~ y, fun.aggregate = function(x) 1L, fill=0L,value.var = "y")

}

library(data.table)
library(microbenchmark)
set.seed(123)
N = 10000
dt <- data.table(id=rep(1:N, each=5),y=sample(letters[1 : 5], N*5, replace = T)) 


microbenchmark(
    "dcast" = dcastFunction(),
    "Table" = TableFunction(),
    "Ans"   = AnsFunction()
    )


 Unit: milliseconds
  expr       min        lq      mean    median        uq       max neval cld
 dcast  42.48367  45.39793  47.56898  46.83755  49.33388  60.72327   100  b 
 Table  28.32704  28.74579  29.14043  29.00010  29.23320  35.16723   100 a  
   Ans 120.80609 123.95895 127.35880 126.85018 130.12491 156.53289   100   c

> all(test1 == test2)
[1] TRUE
> all(test1 == test3)
[1] TRUE

y = apply(matrix(sample(letters, 10L*20L, TRUE), ncol=20L), 1L, paste, collapse="")
dt = data.table(id=sample(1e5,1e7,TRUE), y=sample(y,1e7,TRUE))

microbenchmark(
    "dcast" = dcastFunction(),
    "Table" = TableFunction(),
    "Ans"   = AnsFunction()
)
Unit: seconds
  expr      min       lq     mean   median       uq      max neval cld
 dcast 1.985969 2.064964 2.189764 2.216138 2.266959 2.643231   100 a  
 Table 5.022388 5.403263 5.605012 5.580228 5.830414 6.318729   100   c
   Ans 2.234636 2.414224 2.586727 2.599156 2.645717 2.982311   100  b