Data Manipulation with data.table in R

Just as the i argument lets you filter rows, the j argument of data.table lets you select columns and also perform computations. The syntax is far more convenient and flexible when compared to data.frames.

This chapter introduces data.table's by argument that lets you perform computations by groups. By the end of this chapter, you will master the concise DT[i, j, by] syntax of data.table.

You will learn about a unique feature of data.table in this chapter: modifying existing data.tables in place. Modifying data.tables in place makes your operations incredibly fast and is easy to learn.

Not only does the data.table package help you perform incredibly fast computations, it can also help you read and write data to disk with amazing speeds. This chapter focuses on data.table's fread() and fwrite() functions which let you import and export flat files quickly and easily!