A shortcut through long loops: An illustration of two alternatives to looping over observations
Abstract. It is well known that looping over observations can be slow and should be
avoided. The objective of this article is to discuss two alternative
solutions to looping over observations that can be used to overcome a
particular data-management problem of merging datasets in which unique key
identifiers changed over time. The first alternative, mapch, which is
introduced in this article, uses a combination of appending, indexing, and
merging to solve the problem, while the second alternative uses repeated
merging. Both solutions are much quicker than looping over observations.
However, depending on the nature of the problem, one solution may work
better than the other. It is argued that the use of such dataset-type
manipulations may be suitable to overcome other data-management problems.
More generally speaking, the issue that is addressed—searching for an
alternative to looping over observations—may be common and illustrates
the importance of balancing the costs of developing an efficient solution
with the benefits accruing from that solution.
View all articles by this author:
Ward Vanlaar
View all articles with these keywords:
mapch, appending, data management, indexing, looping, merging
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