Home » How to Calculate Ratios in R (With Examples)

How to Calculate Ratios in R (With Examples)

by Erma Khan

You can use the following methods to calculate the ratio between values in two columns in R:

Method 1: Use Base R

#calculate ratio between variable1 and variable2
df$ratio #calculate ratio between variable1 and variable2, rounded to 2 decimal places
df$ratio 2)

Method 2: Use dplyr

library(dplyr)

#calculate ratio between variable1 and variable2
df %
        mutate(ratio = variable1/variable2)

#calculate ratio between variable1 and variable2, rounded to 2 decimal places
df %
        mutate(ratio = round(variable1/variable2, 2))

This tutorial explains how to use each method in practice with the following data frame that shows the total shots made and attempted by various basketball players:

#create data frame
df frame(players=c('A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H'),
                 makes=c(4, 4, 3, 6, 7, 8, 3, 10),
                 attempts=c(12, 7, 5, 6, 10, 12, 5, 19))

#view data frame
df

  players makes attempts
1       A     4       12
2       B     4        7
3       C     3        5
4       D     6        6
5       E     7       10
6       F     8       12
7       G     3        5
8       H    10       19

Example 1: Calculate Ratios Using Base R

The following code shows how to calculate the ratio between the values in the makes and attempts columns using base R:

#calculate ratio between makes and attempts columns
df$ratio #view updated data frame
df

  players makes attempts      ratio
1       A     4       12  0.3333333
2       B     4        7  0.5714286
3       C     3        5  0.6000000
4       D     6        6  1.0000000
5       E     7       10  0.7000000
6       F     8       12  0.6666667
7       G     3        5  0.6000000
8       H    10       19  0.5263158

The ratio of makes to attempts for the first player is 4 / 12 = 0.33.

In other words, the first player made about 33% of their shot attempts.

We can interpret the ratio values for every other player in a similar manner.

We can also use the round() function to round the ratio values to a certain number of decimal places:

#calculate ratio between makes and attempts columns, rounded to 2 decimal places
df$ratio 2)

#view updated data frame
df

  players makes attempts ratio
1       A     4       12  0.33
2       B     4        7  0.57
3       C     3        5  0.60
4       D     6        6  1.00
5       E     7       10  0.70
6       F     8       12  0.67
7       G     3        5  0.60
8       H    10       19  0.53

Each of the values in the ratio column are now rounded to two decimal places.

Example 2: Calculate Ratios Using dplyr

The following code shows how to calculate the ratio between the values in the makes and attempts columns using the dplyr package:

library(dplyr)

#add new column that shows ratio of makes to attempts
df %
        mutate(ratio = makes/attempts)

#view updated data frame
df

  players makes attempts      ratio
1       A     4       12  0.3333333
2       B     4        7  0.5714286
3       C     3        5  0.6000000
4       D     6        6  1.0000000
5       E     7       10  0.7000000
6       F     8       12  0.6666667
7       G     3        5  0.6000000
8       H    10       19  0.5263158

We can also use the round() function to round the ratio values to a certain number of decimal places:

library(dplyr)

#add new column that shows ratio of makes to attempts, rounded to 2 decimal places
df %
        mutate(ratio = round(makes/attempts, 2))

#view updated data frame
df

  players makes attempts ratio
1       A     4       12  0.33
2       B     4        7  0.57
3       C     3        5  0.60
4       D     6        6  1.00
5       E     7       10  0.70
6       F     8       12  0.67
7       G     3        5  0.60
8       H    10       19  0.53

Each of the values in the ratio column are now rounded to two decimal places.

Notice that the base R method and the dplyr method produce the same results.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in R:

How to Filter for Unique Values Using dplyr
How to Filter by Multiple Conditions Using dplyr
How to Count Number of Occurrences in Columns in R

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