replace duplicate values with NA in time series data using dplyr

Question

My data seems a bit different than other similar kind of posts.

box_num      date       x        y
1-Q      2018-11-18   20.2      8
1-Q      2018-11-25   21         


        

Answer 1

Using dplyr we can group_by box_num and use mutate_at x and y column and replace the duplicated value by NA.

library(dplyr)

df %>%
  group_by(box_num) %>%
  mutate_at(vars(x:y), funs(replace(., duplicated(.), NA)))


# box_num date          x     y
#            
#1 1-Q     2018-11-18 20.2    8   
#2 1-Q     2018-11-25 21.2    7.2 
#3 1-Q     2018-12-2  NA     23   
#4 98-L    2018-11-25  0.134  9.3 
#5 98-L    2018-12-2  NA      4   
#6 76-GI   2018-12-2  22.7    4.56
#7 76-GI   2018-12-9  28     NA  

---

A base R option (which might not be the best in this case) would be :

cols <- c("x", "y")
df[cols] <- sapply(df[cols], function(x) 
            ave(x, df$box_num, FUN = function(x) replace(x, duplicated(x), NA)))