How to create dummy variable for specific range in R?

3
votes

I have a dataset with daily observations from 1990 to 2017. The columns start and end (below) show the beginning and the end of a certain political demonstration. How can I create a dummy variable that takes the value of 1 for every day the event was ongoing as illustrated in the dummy column.

 date       cc  country start  end  dummy
 9/6/1991   20  Canada  0      0    
 9/7/1991   20  Canada  0      0    
 9/8/1991   20  Canada  0      0    
 9/9/1991   20  Canada  0      0    
 9/10/1991  20  Canada  1      0    1
 9/11/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/12/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/13/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/14/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/15/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/16/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/17/1991  20  Canada  0      1    1
 9/18/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/19/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/20/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/21/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/22/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/23/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/24/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/25/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/26/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/27/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 9/28/1991  20  Canada  1      0    1
 9/29/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 9/30/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 10/1/1991  20  Canada  0      0    1
 10/2/1991  20  Canada  0      1    1
 10/3/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 10/4/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 10/5/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 10/6/1991  20  Canada  0      0    
 10/7/1991  20  Canada  0      0

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

1
rfor-loopdummy-variable

1 Answers

3
votes

Try this (I'm assuming your data frame is called df:

df$dummy <- cumsum(df$start - df$end) + df$end

Edit: to accommodate rows where one event is starting at the same time another is ending, you can use the following, slightly harder to read version:

df$dummy <- as.numeric((cumsum(df$start - df$end) + df$end) > 0)