Combinando dados com data.table em R
Scott Ritchie
Postdoctoral Researcher in Systems Genomics

Use measure.vars para indicar as colunas a empilhar:
melt(sales_wide, measure.vars = c("2015", "2016"))
quarter variable value
1: 1 2015 3200100
2: 2 2015 2950000
3: 3 2015 2980700
4: 4 2015 3420000
5: 1 2016 3350000
6: 2 2016 3000300
7: 3 2016 3120200
8: 4 2016 3670000
Use variable.name e value.name para renomear essas colunas no resultado:
melt(sales_wide, measure.vars = c("2015", "2016"),
variable.name = "year", value.name = "amount")
quarter year amount
1: 1 2015 3200100
2: 2 2015 2950000
3: 3 2015 2980700
4: 4 2015 3420000
5: 1 2016 3350000
6: 2 2016 3000300
7: 3 2016 3120200
8: 4 2016 3670000
Use id.vars para indicar as colunas a manter à parte
melt(sales_wide, id.vars = "quarter",
variable.name = "year", value.name = "amount")
quarter year amount
1: 1 2015 3200100
2: 2 2015 2950000
3: 3 2015 2980700
4: 4 2015 3420000
5: 1 2016 3350000
6: 2 2016 3000300
7: 3 2016 3120200
8: 4 2016 3670000
Use ambos para manter só um subconjunto de colunas
melt(sales_wide, id.vars = "quarter", measure.vars = "2015",
variable.name = "year", value.name = "amount")
quarter year amount
1: 1 2015 3200100
2: 2 2015 2950000
3: 3 2015 2980700
4: 4 2015 3420000
Combinando dados com data.table em R