wider

Reshapes a table from long to wide format by spreading a key-value pair across multiple columns. This is the inverse of longer and similar to crosstab.

Behavior:

• Converts long-format data to wide format by spreading columns.
• ID columns (specified by --id-cols) are preserved and identify each row.
• The --names-from column values become the new column headers.
• The --values-from column values populate the new columns.
• When multiple values map to the same cell, an aggregation operation is performed.
• Missing cells are filled with the value specified by --values-fill (default: empty).

Input:

• Reads from one or more TSV files or standard input.
• Files ending in .gz are transparently decompressed.
• The first line is ALWAYS treated as a header.
• When multiple files are provided, they must have the same column structure.

Output:

• By default, output is written to standard output.
• Use --outfile / -o to write to a file instead.

Header behavior:

• Supports --header / -H and --header-hash1 modes.
• The first line is always treated as a header to resolve column names.

Field syntax:

• Use --names-from to specify the column containing new column headers.
• Use --values-from to specify the column containing data values.
• Use --id-cols to specify columns that identify each row.
• Field lists support 1-based indices, ranges (1-3,5-7), header names, name ranges (run-user_time), and wildcards (*_time).
• Run tva --help-fields for a full description shared across tva commands.

Examples:

1. Spread key and value columns back into wide format tva wider –names-from key –values-from value data.tsv

2. Spread measurement column, using result as values tva wider –names-from measurement –values-from result data.tsv

3. Specify ID columns explicitly (dropping others) tva wider –names-from key –values-from val –id-cols id,date data.tsv

4. Count occurrences (crosstab) tva wider –names-from category –id-cols region –op count data.tsv

5. Calculate sum of values tva wider –names-from category –values-from amount –id-cols region –op sum data.tsv

6. Fill missing values with custom string tva wider –names-from key –values-from val –values-fill “NA” data.tsv

7. Sort resulting column headers alphabetically tva wider –names-from key –values-from val –names-sort data.tsv