Find Maximum of Factor Levels in Numerical Column in R

When we have factor column that helps to differentiate between numerical column then we might want to find the maximum value for each of the factor levels. This will help us to compare the factor levels in terms of their maximum and if we want to do this by getting all the columns in the data frame then aggregate function needs to be used with merge function.

Consider the below data frame −

Example

 Live Demo

set.seed(78)
Group<-sample(LETTERS[1:5],20,replace=TRUE) Rank<-sample(1:10,20,replace=TRUE)
Score<-sample(1:100,20)
df1<-data.frame(Group,Rank,Score)
df1

Output

Group Rank Score
1 D 2 5
2 E 4 67
3 D 4 59
4 D 5 40
5 E 6 4
6 C 10 70
7 B 10 61
8 B 4 72
9 A 4 29
10 C 5 89
11 E 1 99
12 C 1 37
13 B 7 83
14 D 4 50
15 B 1 48
16 D 10 9
17 B 1 36
18 D 3 46
19 A 3 34
20 B 10 71

Finding the maximum Score for Group factor levels and returning the output with all the columns −

Example

merge(aggregate(Score~Group,df1,max),df1,by=c("Group","Score"))

Output

Group Score Rank
1 A 78 8
2 B 79 3
3 C 73 5
4 D 99 6
5 E 98 4

Let’s have a look at another example −

Example

 Live Demo

Class<-sample(c("First","Second","Third"),20,replace=TRUE)
Gender<-sample(c("Male","Female"),20,replace=TRUE)
Years<-sample(1:5,20,replace=TRUE)
df2<-data.frame(Class,Gender,Years)
df2

Output

Class Gender Years
1 Third Female 5
2 First Female 4
3 Third Female 5
4 Third Male 4
5 Second Male 4
6 Third Female 3
7 First Male 1
8 Third Male 2
9 First Female 5
10 Second Male 5
11 Second Male 5
12 Third Female 3
13 Third Female 1
14 Second Male 4
15 First Male 2
16 Second Female 1
17 First Female 5
18 Third Female 5
19 Second Female 4
20 First Male 3

Finding the maximum Year for Class factor levels and returning the output with all the columns −

Example

merge(aggregate(Years~Class,df2,max),df2,by=c("Class","Years"))

Output

  Class Years Gender
1 First   5   Male
2 First   5   Male
3 First   5   Male
4 Second  5   Male
5 Second  5   Female
6 Second  5   Female
7 Third   4   Male