idata.frame: Why error "is.data.frame(df) is not TRUE"? - performance

Question

I'm working with a large data frame called exp (file here) in R. In the interests of performance, it was suggested that I check out the idata.frame() function from plyr. But I think I'm using it wrong.
My original call, slow but it works:
df.median<-ddply(exp,
.(groupname,starttime,fPhase,fCycle),
numcolwise(median),
na.rm=TRUE)
With idata.frame, Error: is.data.frame(df) is not TRUE
library(plyr)
df.median<-ddply(idata.frame(exp),
.(groupname,starttime,fPhase,fCycle),
numcolwise(median),
na.rm=TRUE)
So, I thought, perhaps it is my data. So I tried the baseball dataset. The idata.frame example works fine: dlply(idata.frame(baseball), "id", nrow) But if I try something similar to my desired call using baseball, it doesn't work:
bb.median<-ddply(idata.frame(baseball),
.(id,year,team),
numcolwise(median),
na.rm=TRUE)
>Error: is.data.frame(df) is not TRUE
Perhaps my error is in how I'm specifying the groupings? Anyone know how to make my example work?
ETA:
I also tried:
groupVars <- c("groupname","starttime","fPhase","fCycle")
voi<-c('inadist','smldist','lardist')
i<-idata.frame(exp)
ag.median <- aggregate(i[,voi], i[,groupVars], median)
Error in i[, voi] : object of type 'environment' is not subsettable
which uses a faster way of getting the medians, but gives a different error. I don't think I understand how to use idata.frame at all.

Answer 1

Given you are working with 'big' data and looking for perfomance, this seems a perfect fit for data.table.
Specifically the lapply(.SD,FUN) and .SDcols arguments with by
Setup the data.table
library(data.table)
DT <- as.data.table(exp)
iexp <- idata.frame(exp)
Which columns are numeric
numeric_columns <- names(which(unlist(lapply(DT, is.numeric))))
dt.median <- DT[, lapply(.SD, median), by = list(groupname, starttime, fPhase,
fCycle), .SDcols = numeric_columns]
some benchmarking
library(rbenchmark)
benchmark(data.table = DT[, lapply(.SD, median), by = list(groupname, starttime,
fPhase, fCycle), .SDcols = numeric_columns],
plyr = ddply(exp, .(groupname, starttime, fPhase, fCycle), numcolwise(median), na.rm = TRUE),
idataframe = ddply(exp, .(groupname, starttime, fPhase, fCycle), function(x) data.frame(inadist = median(x$inadist),
smldist = median(x$smldist), lardist = median(x$lardist), inadur = median(x$inadur),
smldur = median(x$smldur), lardur = median(x$lardur), emptyct = median(x$emptyct),
entct = median(x$entct), inact = median(x$inact), smlct = median(x$smlct),
larct = median(x$larct), na.rm = TRUE)),
aggregate = aggregate(exp[, numeric_columns],
exp[, c("groupname", "starttime", "fPhase", "fCycle")],
median),
replications = 5)
## test replications elapsed relative user.self
## 4 aggregate 5 5.42 1.789 5.30
## 1 data.table 5 3.03 1.000 3.03
## 3 idataframe 5 11.81 3.898 11.77
## 2 plyr 5 9.47 3.125 9.45

Answer 2

Strange behaviour, but even in the docs it says that idata.frame is experimental. You probably found a bug. Perhaps you could rewrite the check at the top of ddply that tests is.data.frame().
In any case, this cuts about 20% off the time (on my system):
system.time(df.median<-ddply(exp, .(groupname,starttime,fPhase,fCycle), function(x) data.frame(
inadist=median(x$inadist),
smldist=median(x$smldist),
lardist=median(x$lardist),
inadur=median(x$inadur),
smldur=median(x$smldur),
lardur=median(x$lardur),
emptyct=median(x$emptyct),
entct=median(x$entct),
inact=median(x$inact),
smlct=median(x$smlct),
larct=median(x$larct),
na.rm=TRUE))
)
Shane asked you in another post if you could cache the results of your script. I don't really have an idea of your workflow, but it may be best to setup a chron to run this and store the results, daily/hourly whatever.