R: subset a data frame based on conditions from another data frame

Question

Here is a problem I am trying to solve. Say, I have two data frames like the following:

observations <- data.frame(id = rep(rep(c(1,2,3,4), each=5), 5),
         


        

Answer 1

Here's a proposal with merge:

# merge both data frames
dat <- merge(observations, sampletimes, by = "id")
# extract valid rows
dat2 <- dat[dat$time > dat$time1 & dat$time < dat$time2, seq(4)]
# sort
dat2[order(dat2$time, dat2$id), ]

The result:

    id time measurement location
11   1    3    7.086246        a
141  2    3    6.893162        b
251  3    3   16.052627        c
376  4    3   -6.559494        d
47   1    8   11.506810        e
137  2    8   10.959782        f
267  3    8   11.079759        g
402  4    8   11.082015        h
83   1   13    5.584257        i
218  2   13   -1.714845        j
283  3   13  -11.196792        k
418  4   13    8.887907        l
99   1   18    1.656558        m
234  2   18   16.573179        n
364  3   18    6.522298        o
454  4   18    1.005123        p
125  1   23   -1.995719        q
250  2   23   -6.676464        r
360  3   23   10.514282        s
490  4   23    3.863357        t