36

I have a data frame in the format:

head(subset)
# ants  0 1 1 0 1 
# age   1 2 2 1 3
# lc    1 1 0 1 0

I need to create new data frame with random samples according to age and lc. For example I want 30 samples from age:1 and lc:1, 30 samples from age:1 and lc:0 etc.

I did look at random sampling method like;

newdata <- function(subset, age, 30)

But it is not the code that I want.

zx8754
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user3525533
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6 Answers6

50

I would suggest using either stratified from my "splitstackshape" package, or sample_n from the "dplyr" package:

## Sample data
set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- data.table(age = sample(1:5, n, T), 
                lc = rbinom(n, 1 , .5),
                ants = rbinom(n, 1, .7))
# table(d$age, d$lc)

For stratified, you basically specify the dataset, the stratifying columns, and an integer representing the size you want from each group OR a decimal representing the fraction you want returned (for example, .1 represents 10% from each group).

library(splitstackshape)
set.seed(1)
out <- stratified(d, c("age", "lc"), 30)
head(out)
#    age lc ants
# 1:   1  0    1
# 2:   1  0    0
# 3:   1  0    1
# 4:   1  0    1
# 5:   1  0    0
# 6:   1  0    1

table(out$age, out$lc)
#    
#      0  1
#   1 30 30
#   2 30 30
#   3 30 30
#   4 30 30
#   5 30 30

For sample_n you first create a grouped table (using group_by) and then specify the number of observations you want. If you wanted proportional sampling instead, you should use sample_frac.

library(dplyr)
set.seed(1)
out2 <- d %>%
  group_by(age, lc) %>%
  sample_n(30)

# table(out2$age, out2$lc)
A5C1D2H2I1M1N2O1R2T1
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    And if you need both the sampled and non-sampled sets be returned (as was my case when creating a treatment/control split in an A/B test) the `bothSets = T` argument of the `stratified` method is your friend. – Bill DeRose Jun 28 '19 at 20:32
  • Is it possible to get 100% for age=1, 30% for age=2, etc ? (vary the final sample per group) – Pablo Casas Apr 19 '20 at 23:40
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    As of 2020, the `sample_n` and `sample_frac` functions have been deprecated and replaced with `slice_sample`, which can be used after the `group_by` call like so: `slice_sample(n = 30` or `slice_sample(prop = .5)` – jjack Jul 07 '20 at 19:48
17

See the function strata from the package sampling. The function selects stratified simple random sampling and gives a sample as a result. Extra two columns are added - inclusion probabilities (Prob) and strata indicator (Stratum). See the example.

require(data.table)
require(sampling)

set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- data.table(age = sample(1:5, n, T), 
                lc = rbinom(n, 1 , .5),
                ants = rbinom(n, 1, .7))

# Sort
setkey(d, age, lc)

# Population size by strata
d[, .N, keyby = list(age, lc)]
#     age lc    N
#  1:   1  0 1010
#  2:   1  1 1002
#  3:   2  0  993
#  4:   2  1 1026
#  5:   3  0 1021
#  6:   3  1  982
#  7:   4  0  958
#  8:   4  1  940
#  9:   5  0 1012
# 10:   5  1 1056

# Select sample
set.seed(2)
s <- data.table(strata(d, c("age", "lc"), rep(30, 10), "srswor"))

# Sample size by strata
s[, .N, keyby = list(age, lc)]
#     age lc  N
#  1:   1  0 30
#  2:   1  1 30
#  3:   2  0 30
#  4:   2  1 30
#  5:   3  0 30
#  6:   3  1 30
#  7:   4  0 30
#  8:   4  1 30
#  9:   5  0 30
# 10:   5  1 30
Max Ghenis
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djhurio
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17

Here's some data:

set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- data.frame(age = sample(1:5,n,TRUE), 
                lc = rbinom(n,1,.5),
                ants = rbinom(n,1,.7))

You want a split-apply-combine strategy, where you split your data.frame (d in this example), sample rows/observations from each subsample, and then combine then back together with rbind. Here's how it works:

sp <- split(d, list(d$age, d$lc))
samples <- lapply(sp, function(x) x[sample(1:nrow(x), 30, FALSE),])
out <- do.call(rbind, samples)

The result:

> str(out)
'data.frame':   300 obs. of  3 variables:
 $ age : int  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
 $ lc  : int  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
 $ ants: int  1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
> head(out)
         age lc ants
1.0.2242   1  0    1
1.0.4417   1  0    1
1.0.389    1  0    0
1.0.4578   1  0    1
1.0.8170   1  0    1
1.0.5606   1  0    1
Thomas
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  • that's what I want to do. I did try split and lapply functions, but r gives an exceed memory error. Is there other way to do it for huge dataset? thanks – user3525533 May 07 '14 at 19:54
  • @user3525533 How big is your dataset? – Thomas May 07 '14 at 19:58
  • its around 2gb. I have 30 variables and 16826950 obs. in my data frame though. When I use split function, it gives a memory error. – user3525533 May 07 '14 at 21:17
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    Sorry, it's `setDT(d)[d[, sample(.I, 30L, FALSE), by="age,lc"]$V1]` – Arun May 08 '14 at 02:48
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    @Thomas;it will be faster to sample the row indices rather than rows - a lot faster if there are many columns / rows. `sp – user20650 Aug 26 '15 at 11:38
7

Here's a one-liner using data.table:

set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- data.table(age  = sample(1:5, n, T),
                lc   = rbinom(n,   1, .5),
                ants = rbinom(n,   1, .7))

out <- d[, .SD[sample(1:.N, 30)], by=.(age, lc)]

# Check
out[, table(age, lc)]
##    lc
## age  0  1
##   1 30 30
##   2 30 30
##   3 30 30
##   4 30 30
##   5 30 30
mrbrich
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3

This is ridiculously easy to do with base R.

Step 1: Create a stratum indicator using the interaction function.

Step 2: Use tapply on a sequence of row indicators to identify the indices of the random sample.

Step 3: Subset the data with those indices

Using the data example from @Thomas:

set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- data.frame(age = sample(1:5,n,TRUE), 
                lc = rbinom(n,1,.5),
                ants = rbinom(n,1,.7))

## stratum indicator
d$group <- interaction(d[, c('age', 'lc')])

## sample selection
indices <- tapply(1:nrow(d), d$group, sample, 30)

## obtain subsample
subsampd <- d[unlist(indices, use.names = FALSE), ]

Verify appropriate stratification

> table(subsampd$group)

1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 1.1 2.1 3.1 4.1 5.1 
 30  30  30  30  30  30  30  30  30  30 
AdamO
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1

Here is an updated dplyr version for stratified sampling when you need different numbers of samples from each group (i.e. 1:5 ratio or something in my case, but you can specify the n for each group combination).

set.seed(1)
n <- 1e4
d <- tibble::tibble(age = sample(1:5, n, T), 
                    lc = rbinom(n, 1 , .5),
                    ants = rbinom(n, 1, .7))
> d
# A tibble: 10,000 x 3
     age    lc  ants
   <int> <int> <int>
 1     2     0     1
 2     2     1     1
 3     3     1     1
 4     5     0     1
 5     2     0     1
 6     5     0     1
 7     5     1     1
 8     4     1     1
 9     4     1     1
10     1     0     1
# … with 9,990 more rows

there are 10 unique combos of age/lc:

> d %>% group_by(age, lc) %>% nest()
# A tibble: 10 x 3
# Groups:   age, lc [10]
     age    lc data                
   <int> <int> <list>              
 1     2     0 <tibble [993 × 1]>  
 2     2     1 <tibble [1,026 × 1]>
 3     3     1 <tibble [982 × 1]>  
 4     5     0 <tibble [1,012 × 1]>
 5     5     1 <tibble [1,056 × 1]>
 6     4     1 <tibble [940 × 1]>  
 7     1     0 <tibble [1,010 × 1]>
 8     1     1 <tibble [1,002 × 1]>
 9     4     0 <tibble [958 × 1]>  
10     3     0 <tibble [1,021 × 1]>

We can sample a prespecified number of rows from each group of age/lc combinations:

> d %>% 
  group_by(age, lc) %>% 
  nest() %>% 
  ungroup() %>% 
  # you must supply `n` for each combination of groups in `group_by(age, lc)`
  mutate(n = c(1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 1)) %>%  
  mutate(samp = purrr::map2(.x = data, .y= n, 
                            .f = function(.x, .y) slice_sample(.data = .x, n = .y))) %>% 
  select(-data, -n) %>% 
  unnest(samp)
# A tibble: 16 x 3
     age    lc  ants
   <int> <int> <int>
 1     2     0     0
 2     2     1     1
 3     3     1     1
 4     5     0     0
 5     5     0     1
 6     5     1     1
 7     5     1     1
 8     5     1     1
 9     4     1     1
10     1     0     1
11     1     0     1
12     1     1     1
13     1     1     1
14     1     1     0
15     4     0     1
16     3     0     1
Reilstein
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