How to convert a column in a dataframe to a numeric value based on a specific code

I have a column in a dataframe in R that has vertebrae levels coded as characters from C7-S2.

df_example <- data.frame(c("S1", "C2", "T3","L1"))
df_example

I need to convert each row to a numeric value based on a separate dataframe that has the specific value that each level needs to be converted to. It looks similar to this:

c1 <- c("C1","C2","C3","T1","T2","T3","L1","L2","L3","S1","S2")
c2 <- c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11)
df_code <- data.frame(c1,c2)
df_code

I would like the final output to look like this:

c1_output <- c("S1", "C2", "T3","L1")
c2_output <- c(10,2,6,7)
df_output <- data.frame(c1_output,c2_output)
df_output

However, I am not sure how to do this. Is there some sort of function I could apply to the column in the dataframe to create a new column based on the other dataframe with the specific "codes"? I would appreciate any help – thanks!

>Solution :

same as @zephryl suggested. using your data.

df_example <- data.frame(vertebrae = c("S1", "C2", "T3","L1"))

c1 <- c("C1","C2","C3","T1","T2","T3","L1","L2","L3","S1","S2")
c2 <- c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11)
df_code <- data.frame(vertebrae = c1,locs = c2)

library(dplyr)
df_example %>%
  left_join(df_code, by = "vertebrae")