根据字符串（名称）合并 R 中的两个数据帧

Question

I have two data frames which I need to merge based on candidate and constituency column. Now the problem here is that in both of the data frames there are discrepancies between the spelling of names in both the data frames.

For example in one data frame name is Dr. Ashutosh Singh in other it is Dr Ashutosh Singh. In one data frame name is Dr. Vikash Singh in another its Vikash Singh.

I'm attaching a screenshot of both the data frames. first data frame

Secoond data frame

I have to map first data frame columns CAND_NAME and AC_NAME to the second data frame columns candidate and constituency respectively and have to merge them in one.

I'm sharing the Excel file too and the R code. I have to merge the three sheets into one.
Link for the excel file

R Code

setwd("/home/lenovo/Documents/r_prog/")
library(readxl)

candidate2017=read_excel("LA 2017.xlsx", sheet = 1)
electors2017=read_excel("LA 2017.xlsx", sheet = 2)

ManipurCandidates2017ADR=read_excel("LA 2017.xlsx", sheet = 3)

ManipurCandidate2017=candidate2017[grepl("Manipur", candidate2017$ST_NAME),]
ManipurElectors2017=electors2017[grepl("Manipur", electors2017$ST_NAME),]


ManipurElectors2017 = data.frame(lapply(ManipurElectors2017, function(v) {
  if (is.character(v)) return(toupper(v))
  else return(v)
}))

ManipurCandidates2017ADR = data.frame(lapply(ManipurCandidates2017ADR, function(v) {
  if (is.character(v)) return(toupper(v))
  else return(v)
}))

ManipurCandidate2017 = data.frame(lapply(ManipurCandidate2017, function(v) {
  if (is.character(v)) return(toupper(v))
  else return(v)
}))


View(ManipurCandidate2017)
View(ManipurElectors2017)
View(ManipurCandidates2017ADR)

mergedData = merge(ManipurCandidate2017,ManipurCandidates2017ADR , 
              by.x=c('CAND_NAME'), by.y=c('Candidate'), all = TRUE)

I am new to R please help. Thanks In advance.

Answer 1

A possible solution involves using Approximate String Matching (Fuzzy Matching). Check out the agrep() function. You can of course embed agrep() into a merge() call. I cannot write the code since you don't provide a reproducible example.

The call would look something like this:

dat3 <- merge(x=dat1,y = dat2[agrep(dat1$ID1[1],dat2$ID2),],all=TRUE)