Is there a way in R to combine columns based on a names column (0s involved)

Question

I'm trying to combine a few columns. Consider these.

Name	Age
Amy	21
Jake	15
Bill	24
Sophie	30

Name	Children
Amy	2
Bill	1

Name	Pets
Jake	1

The desired output is:

Name	Age	Children	Pets	50 more columns...
Amy	21	2	0	...
Jake	15	0	1	...
Bill	24	1	0	...
Sophie	30	0	0	...

Note that I've got about 50 columns of different characteristics to combine, hence merge and cbind have caused me tremendous issues.

Answer 1

df4<-merge(merge(df1, df2, all.x = TRUE), df3, all.x = TRUE)
df4[is.na(df4)] <-0
df4
    Name Age Children Pets
1    Amy  21        2    0
2   Bill  24        1    0
3   Jake  15        0    1
4 Sophie  30        0    0

Note that if you have many dfs, you could do:

my_list <- list(df1, df2, df3, df4, ...)
Reduce(function(...)merge(..., all.x = TRUE), my_list)