How to merge Column headers in dataframe in r

Question

I have a data-frame in R that looks like this.

Housing = c("Average Housing Year Built",
        "Owner Occupied",
        "Occupied Units",
        "Rent as a Percent of MFI",
        "All Residents",
        "Hispanic/Latino",
        "White",
        "Black",
        "Asian")

Values = c(1920, 5065886, 7255261, 99444.94, "20.54%", "27.7%", "18.67%",
           "36.64%", "42.42%")

Housing = data.frame(Housing, Values)

I'm trying to merge the column headers - Housing$Housing & Housing$Values into a Single cell called Housing_characteristics and the rest of the data frame must be the same. Exactly like an Excel spreadsheet.

https://i.stack.imgur.com/J7AjF.jpg

I want the output to look something like this - https://i.stack.imgur.com/qHd0C.jpg

I have a bunch of these data-frames that I'm displaying in an RShiny application and need to format the headers for a clean look.

Thanks!

Answer 1

This might be the closest thing you can get:

library(stargazer)
stargazer(Housing, summary = FALSE, type = "text",
          rownames = FALSE, align = TRUE, title = "Housing Characteristics")

Text Table:

Housing Characteristics
===================================
         Housing            Values 
-----------------------------------
Average Housing Year Built   1920  
      Owner Occupied       5065886 
      Occupied Units       7255261 
 Rent as a Percent of MFI  99444.94
      All Residents         20.54% 
     Hispanic/Latino        27.7%  
          White             18.67% 
          Black             36.64% 
          Asian             42.42% 
-----------------------------------

Note that this is not a data.frame . This is a table in text form outputted into your console, so you cannot manipulate it like a data.frame .

If you are fine with latex tables in your shiny app, you can also use the type = latex option, which is the default:

library(stargazer)
stargazer(Housing, summary = FALSE, header = FALSE,
          title = "Housing Characteristics")

Latex Code:

\begin{table}[!htbp] \centering 
  \caption{Housing Characteristics} 
  \label{} 
\begin{tabular}{@{\extracolsep{5pt}} cc} 
\\[-1.8ex]\hline 
\hline \\[-1.8ex] 
Housing & Values \\ 
\hline \\[-1.8ex] 
Average Housing Year Built & 1920 \\ 
Owner Occupied & 5065886 \\ 
Occupied Units & 7255261 \\ 
Rent as a Percent of MFI & 99444.94 \\ 
All Residents & 20.54\% \\ 
Hispanic/Latino & 27.7\% \\ 
White & 18.67\% \\ 
Black & 36.64\% \\ 
Asian & 42.42\% \\ 
\hline \\[-1.8ex] 
\end{tabular} 
\end{table}

This would look quite nice on a shiny app!

Answer 2

Modify the displayed output and not the data.frame . The following will draw an interactive table with title and still allow columns to be sorted:

library(DT)

sketch = htmltools::withTags(table(
  class = 'display',
  thead(
    tr(
      th(colspan = 2, 'Housing Characteristics')
    ),
    tr(
      th('Description'),
      th('Values')
    )
  )
))

datatable(Housing, container = sketch, rownames = FALSE)

example derived from section 2.5 of http://rstudio.github.io/DT/