[R] . Re: Splitting a data column randomly into 3 groups

[Thomas Subia]

I was wondering if this is a good alternative method to split a data column
into distinct groups.
Let's say I want my first group to have 4 elements selected randomly

mydata <- LETTERS[1:11] 
 random_grp <- sample(mydata,4,replace=FALSE)

Now random_grp is:
> random_grp
[1] "H" "E" "A" "D"
# How's that for a random selection!

Now my choices for another group of random data now becomes:
 data_wo_random <- setdiff(mydata,random_grp)

> data_wo_random
[1] "B" "C" "F" "G" "I" "J" "K"

Now from this reduced dataset, I can generate another random selection with
any size I choose.

One problem with this is that this is cumbersome when ones original dataset
is large or when one wants to subgroup the original dataset into many
different subgroup sizes.

Nevertheless, it's an intuitive method which is relatively easy to
understand

Hope this helps!

Thomas Subia
Statistician