Data management in R with data.table

Matt Dowle, author of the data.table package, describes it as, “provid[ing] a high-performance version of base R’s data.frame with syntax and feature enhancements for ease of use, convenience and programming speed.” In this workshop I will first introduce the data.table syntax using generic SQL and the dplyr R package as reference points.  Topics to be discussed include subsetting, aggregating, and merging data frames.  I will then discuss updating by reference and its role in efficiently working with large data sets.  Other advanced uses of the powerful data.table syntax will be covered as time permits.