How can I get the average (mean) of selected columns

Solution 1:

Here are some examples:

> z$mean <- rowMeans(subset(z, select = c(x, y)), na.rm = TRUE)
> z
  w x  y mean
1 5 1  1    1
2 6 2  2    2
3 7 3  3    3
4 8 4 NA    4

weighted mean

> z$y <- rev(z$y)
> z
  w x  y mean
1 5 1 NA    1
2 6 2  3    2
3 7 3  2    3
4 8 4  1    4
> 
> weight <- c(1, 2) # x * 1/3 + y * 2/3
> z$wmean <- apply(subset(z, select = c(x, y)), 1, function(d) weighted.mean(d, weight, na.rm = TRUE))
> z
  w x  y mean    wmean
1 5 1 NA    1 1.000000
2 6 2  3    2 2.666667
3 7 3  2    3 2.333333
4 8 4  1    4 2.000000

Solution 2:

Try using rowMeans:

z$mean=rowMeans(z[,c("x", "y")], na.rm=TRUE)

  w x  y mean
1 5 1  1    1
2 6 2  2    2
3 7 3  3    3
4 8 4 NA    4