# Bind DataFrames Along Columns - Filling in Missing Rows with NA `cbind_fill` binds together matrix-like objects by columns. The input objects will all internally be converted to data.frames by the generic function `as.data.frame`. When some objects do not contain rows that are present in other objects, NAs will be added to fill up the returned combined data.frame. If a matrix doesn't have rownames, the row number is used. Note that this means that a row with name "1" is merged with the first row of a matrix without name and so on. The returned matrix will always have row names. Colnames are ignored. ```r cbind_fill(...) ``` ## Arguments - `...`: any combination of data.frames, matrices, or atomic vectors input as separate arguments or a list. ## Returns data.frame created by combining all the objects input together. It will always have rownames. If colnames are not provided to the matrix-like objects, the returned colnames can be rather esoteric since default colnaming will be revised to ensure each colname is unique. If `...` is a list of vectors, then the colnames will be the names of the list. ## Details `cbind_fill` ensures each object has unique colnames and then calls `Join(by = "0")`. It is intended to be the column version of `plyr::rbind.fill`; it differs by allowing inputs to be matrices or vectors in addition to data.frames. ## Examples ```r # standard use A <- data.frame("first" = 1:2, "second" = 3:4) B <- data.frame("third" = 6:8, "fourth" = 9:11) print(A) print(B) cbind_fill(A, B) # help with unstack() row_keep <- sample(1:nrow(InsectSprays), size = 36) InsectSprays2 <- InsectSprays[row_keep, ] unstacked <- unstack(InsectSprays2) cbind_fill(unstacked) # using rownames for binding rownames(A) <- c("one", "two") rownames(B) <- c("three","two","one") print(A) print(B) cbind_fill(A, B) # matrices as input A <- matrix(1:4, 2) B <- matrix(6:11, 3) print(A) print(B) cbind_fill(A, B) # atomic vector input A <- data.frame("first" = 1:2, "second" = 3:4) B <- data.frame("third" = 6:8, "fourth" = 9:11) C <- c(12,13,14,15) D <- c(16,17,18,19) cbind_fill(A, B, C, D) # same as plyr::rbind.fill, it doesn't handles well some inputs with custom rownames # and others with default rownames rownames(A) <- c("one", "two") print(A) print(B) cbind_fill(A, B) ``` ## See Also `cbind_fill_matrix` `rbind.fill`

cbind_fill function