[R] Help creating a panel dataset

[arun]

Hi,
Try:
dat <- read.table(text="FIRM               'EBITDA 2012'      'EBITDA 2011'    'ROE 2012'       'ROE 2011'
Microsoft            65654                 5654                         54%               23%
Apple                 436354               57658                        66%               34%
Facebook            3255                 344575                       43%               44%",sep="",header=TRUE,stringsAsFactors=FALSE,check.names=FALSE)

colnames(dat)[grep("EBITDA|ROE",colnames(dat))] <- gsub(" ", "_",colnames(dat)[grep("EBITDA|ROE",colnames(dat))])
 res <- reshape(dat,direction="long",idvar="FIRM",timevar="YEAR",varying=colnames(dat)[-1],sep="_")
res$FIRM <- factor(res$FIRM, levels=dat$FIRM)
 res[order(res$FIRM),]
#       FIRM YEAR EBITDA ROE
#1 Microsoft 2012  65654 54%
#4 Microsoft 2011   5654 23%
#2     Apple 2012 436354 66%
#5     Apple 2011  57658 34%
#3  Facebook 2012   3255 43%
#6  Facebook 2011 344575 44%


A.K.



Hello guys .. I hope someone could give an advice on this. 

I have a dataset and have to make a panel regression, but my dataset is like this now 
(number are random) : 

FIRM               EBITDA 2012      EBITDA 2011      ..  ..    ROE 2012       ROE 2011 
Microsoft            65654                 5654                         54%               23% 
Apple                 436354               57658                        66%               34% 
Facebook            3255                 344575                       43%               44% 
..                        ..                       ..                             ..                  .. 
..                        ..                       .. 
..                        ..                       .. 

i have to change it like this but i'm a newbie in R and i don't know the commands : 

FIRM               YEAR      EBITDA     ROE       
Microsoft          2012       65654      54% 
Microsoft          2011        5654       23% 
Apple               2012       436354     66% 
Apple               2011       57658       34% 
Facebook          2012        3255       43% 
Facebook          2011      344575      44% 
..                   
..                         
..           


Do you think does an easy and fast way to di it exist? 
Thank you very much to everyone. 

Kind regards