Merging column names in rmarkdown tables

[z.ageru]

animal <- c("new","old","new","old")
price <- c(150,200,500,750)
animal_data <- rbind(animal,price)
colnames(animal_data) <- c("lion", "lion2", "buffalo", "buffalo2")
animal_data<- data.frame(animal_data)
animal_data

the data look like the ff.

How we can merge only column names lion and lion2 =''lion'' $ buffalo and buffalo2= ''buffalo'' in rmarkdown kable() function , could you have an idea?

[jrkrideau]

It is not really clear what you are trying to do but I think your attempt to create a data.frame will not work. My best guess in that you are trying to do something like this.

lion <-"newt"  # new chanced to "newt" because "new" is a function name.
lion2 <- "old"
buffalo <- "newt"  # new chanced to "newt" because "new" is a function name.
buffalo2<- "old"
animal <- c(lion, lion2, buffalo, buffalo2)
price <- c(150,  200, 500, 750)
animal_data <- data.frame(animal,price)
animal_data

This gives us this, which I suspect is not what you want.

 animal price
1   newt   150
2    old   200
3   newt   500
4    old   750

[z.ageru]

thank you for your help. you are correct the code was not correct. I have edit the code . my question is how we can merge two column names in to one single name in rmarkdown. if you have an idea please help me . thank you in advance

[prubin]

Perhaps you could edit the question to show what result you want.

[z.ageru]

I have edited see again

animal <- c("new","old","new","old")
price <- c(150,200,500,750)
animal_data <- rbind(animal,price)
colnames(animal_data) <- c("lion", "lion2", "buffalo", "buffalo2")
animal_data<- data.frame(animal_data)
animal_data

[prubin]

Yes, but what should the modified table (the final result) look like?

[z.ageru]

i want only two column names lion and buffalo, assume loin & lion2 are the same

[prubin]

This is the output your code currently produces. Are you saying you want the same 2x4 table, but with column names "lion, lion, buffalo, buffalo"? Repeated column names are not a good idea.

[z.ageru]

So, how we can merge lion, lion to lion only ,two cells in one, this my question , the output should like the following

               lion                     buffalo                                                                            
   new         old             new           old
    150           200             500            750

[prubin]

I don't think you can do that with just kable, but you can if you install the kableExtra package. There is an example here.

[z.ageru]

animal <- c("new","old","new","old")
price <- c(150,200,500,750)
animal_data <- rbind(animal,price)
animal_data<- data.frame(animal_data)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)
kable(animal_data, booktabs = TRUE) %>%
  add_header_above(c(" " = 1, "lion" = 2, "buffalo" = 2))

still by default it gives x1 and x2 column names

[z.ageru]

col_name<-  c("new","old","new","old")
price <- c(150,200,500,750)
weghts<- c(220, 330,800,900)
animal_data <- rbind(price,weghts)
colnames(animal_data) <- col_name
animal_data<- data.frame(animal_data)

# by defual if the column names duplicate , it gives .1 after the duplicate name 
names(animal_data) <- gsub('[.].+', '', names(animal_data))
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)
kable(animal_data) %>%
  add_header_above(c(" " = 1, "lion" = 2, "buffalo" = 2))%>%kable_styling(latex_options = "scale_down")

thank you for your link, now I got, how I can prepare r markdown tables in such cases
I modified the original code by adding one more rows to create a data.frame and use the new and old rows as column names, remove duplicates using gsub() function then add_headers_above function to add lion and buffalo main columns. thank you