pivot_longer (wide to long) in R Programming - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Convert Wide Data to Long Format using pivot_longer

📖 Scenario: You have a small dataset showing sales of different fruits in two months. The data is in a wide format, where each month is a separate column.We want to change this data into a long format, where each row shows the fruit, the month, and the sales amount. This format is easier to analyze and plot.

🎯 Goal: Transform the wide data frame fruit_sales into a long format using pivot_longer from the tidyr package. The result should have columns Fruit, Month, and Sales.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a data frame called fruit_sales with columns Fruit, Jan, and Feb and the exact data provided.

Create a vector called months containing the column names Jan and Feb.

Use pivot_longer on fruit_sales with cols = months, naming the new columns Month and Sales.

Print the resulting long format data frame.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Data often comes in wide format from spreadsheets or reports. Converting it to long format helps in analysis and visualization.

💼 Career

Data analysts and scientists frequently reshape data using pivot_longer to prepare datasets for plotting and statistical modeling.

1

Create the wide data frame

Create a data frame called fruit_sales with columns Fruit, Jan, and Feb containing these exact rows: 'Apple', 30, 45, 'Banana', 25, 40, 'Cherry', 15, 20.

R Programming

# Create the data frame fruit_sales with the exact data
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use data.frame() with vectors for each column named exactly Fruit, Jan, and Feb.

2

Create a vector of month columns

Create a character vector called months containing the strings 'Jan' and 'Feb'.

R Programming

fruit_sales <- data.frame(
  Fruit = c('Apple', 'Banana', 'Cherry'),
  Jan = c(30, 25, 15),
  Feb = c(45, 40, 20)
)

# Create the vector months with 'Jan' and 'Feb'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use c() to create a vector with the two month names as strings.

3

Use pivot_longer to reshape the data

Use pivot_longer from the tidyr package on fruit_sales with cols = months, names_to = 'Month', and values_to = 'Sales'. Save the result in a variable called long_sales. Remember to load tidyr first.

R Programming

fruit_sales <- data.frame(
  Fruit = c('Apple', 'Banana', 'Cherry'),
  Jan = c(30, 25, 15),
  Feb = c(45, 40, 20)
)

months <- c('Jan', 'Feb')

# Load tidyr and use pivot_longer to create long_sales
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use library(tidyr) to load the package. Then use pivot_longer() with the exact arguments.

4

Print the long format data frame

Write a line to print the variable long_sales.

R Programming

library(tidyr)

fruit_sales <- data.frame(
  Fruit = c('Apple', 'Banana', 'Cherry'),
  Jan = c(30, 25, 15),
  Feb = c(45, 40, 20)
)

months <- c('Jan', 'Feb')

long_sales <- pivot_longer(fruit_sales, cols = months, names_to = 'Month', values_to = 'Sales')

# Print the long_sales data frame
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(long_sales) to display the transformed data.