Column is lost when dataframe is converted from wide to long format

June 20, 2023

I have the dataframe below

df<-structure(list(Participant = c("Valentin", "Valentin", "Valentin", 
"Valentin", "Valentin", "Valentin", "Valentin", "Valentin", "Valentin", 
"Valentin"), Number = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1), Level = c("A1", 
"A1", "A1", "A1", "A1", "A1", "A1", "A1", "A1", "A1"), `Spanish use` = c(42, 
42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42, 42), Block = c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5), `Place of articulation` = c("Bilabial", "Bilabial", 
"Bilabial", "Bilabial", "Bilabial", "Dental", "Dental", "Dental", 
"Dental", "Dental"), `VOT 0` = c(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
), `VOT 5` = c(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0), `VOT 10` = c(1, 
0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0), `VOT 15` = c(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 
0, 0, 0), `VOT 20` = c(1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0), `VOT -10` = c(1, 
1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1), `VOT -20` = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 
1, 1, 1), `VOT -30` = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1), `VOT -40` = c(1, 
1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1), `VOT -50` = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 
1, 1, 1), `VOT -60` = c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)), row.names = c(NA, 
-10L), class = c("tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"))

and with:

df_long <- df %>% 
  pivot_longer(cols = starts_with("VOT"), names_to = "VOT", values_to = "response")

I convert it to:

# A tibble: 6 × 6
  Participant Number Level `Place of articulation` VOT     response
  <chr>        <dbl> <chr> <chr>                   <chr>      <dbl>
1 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT 0          1
2 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT 5          1
3 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT 10         1
4 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT 15         1
5 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT 20         1
6 Valentin         1 A1    Bilabial                VOT -10        1

but I want also to include the Block column in the new data

>Solution :

i dont see any issue with your code as the same code produced the below result where i see Block column

library(tidyverse)

df_long <- df %>% 
  pivot_longer(cols = starts_with("VOT"), names_to = "VOT", values_to = "response")

# A tibble: 110 × 8
   Participant Number Level `Spanish use` Block `Place of articulation` VOT     response
   <chr>        <dbl> <chr>         <dbl> <dbl> <chr>                   <chr>      <dbl>
 1 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT 0          1
 2 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT 5          1
 3 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT 10         1
 4 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT 15         1
 5 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT 20         1
 6 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT -10        1
 7 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT -20        1
 8 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT -30        1
 9 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT -40        1
10 Valentin         1 A1               42     1 Bilabial                VOT -50        1
# … with 100 more rows
# ℹ Use `print(n = ...)` to see more rows