John Kane
2006-Apr-11 15:24 UTC
[R] Creating an new variable -or my failure to understand an IF() statement
I am just starting with R and I am having a stupid problem understanding an if else statement because I am thinking in terms of something like SAS or Fortran. I am completely misunderstanding what I am reading in the Intro to R, the R-Language Definitions and the Help Mailing List. I have read references to if not a vector and ifelse vectored and am even more confused. Problem : I want to create some new variables to use in a data.frame. The actual data is read into data.frame (mixed string and numeric data) using a read.csv() command. Testdata is: a <- c("A", "B","C","D","E") Y1 <- c(2, 2 , 400, 500, 600) Y2 <- c(2, 4, 4 , 600, 700) Y3 <- c(5, 4, 1, 1, 200) Y4 <- c(5, 5, 1, 3, 5) MyData <- data.frame(a,Y1,Y2,Y3, Y4) MyData # Results are: a Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 1 A 2 2 5 5 2 B 2 4 4 5 3 C 400 4 1 1 4 D 500 600 1 3 5 E 600 700 200 5 What I want to do is to add a variable to the data.frame so that I have: a Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 P1 1 A 2 2 5 5 4 2 B 2 4 4 5 8 3 C 400 4 1 1 2 4 D 500 600 1 3 4 5 E 600 700 200 5 NA However when I try this : if (a=="A") (P1 <- Y1+ Y2) else if (a=="B") (P1 <- Y2+Y3) else if (a=="C" ) (P1 <- Y3+ Y4) else if (a=="D" (P1 <- Y4) else if (a=="D") (P1<- NA) Error: syntax error in: " if (a=="C" ) (P1 <- Y3+ Y4) else if (a=="D" (P1 <- Y4) else"> if (a=="D") (P1<- NA)Warning message: the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used in: if (a == "D") (P1 <- NA) Can anyone help me a) get around it and b) understand what R is really doing.? Thanks John Kane, Kingston ON Canada
Chuck Cleland
2006-Apr-11 16:02 UTC
[R] Creating an new variable -or my failure to understand an IF() statement
John Kane wrote:> I am just starting with R and I am having a stupid > problem understanding an if else statement because I > am thinking in terms of something like SAS or Fortran. > > > I am completely misunderstanding what I am reading in > the Intro to R, the R-Language Definitions and the > Help Mailing List. I have read references to if not a > vector and ifelse vectored and am even more confused. > > Problem : I want to create some new variables to use > in a data.frame. The actual data is read into > data.frame (mixed string and numeric data) using a > read.csv() command. > > Testdata is: > a <- c("A", "B","C","D","E") > Y1 <- c(2, 2 , 400, 500, 600) > Y2 <- c(2, 4, 4 , 600, 700) > Y3 <- c(5, 4, 1, 1, 200) > Y4 <- c(5, 5, 1, 3, 5) > > MyData <- data.frame(a,Y1,Y2,Y3, Y4) > > MyData > # Results are: > a Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 > 1 A 2 2 5 5 > 2 B 2 4 4 5 > 3 C 400 4 1 1 > 4 D 500 600 1 3 > 5 E 600 700 200 5 > > > What I want to do is to add a variable to the > data.frame so that I have: > > a Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 P1 > 1 A 2 2 5 5 4 > 2 B 2 4 4 5 8 > 3 C 400 4 1 1 2 > 4 D 500 600 1 3 4 > 5 E 600 700 200 5 NA > > However when I try this : > > if (a=="A") (P1 <- Y1+ Y2) else > if (a=="B") (P1 <- Y2+Y3) else > if (a=="C" ) (P1 <- Y3+ Y4) else > if (a=="D" (P1 <- Y4) else > if (a=="D") (P1<- NA) > > Error: syntax error in: > " if (a=="C" ) (P1 <- Y3+ Y4) else > if (a=="D" (P1 <- Y4) else" >> if (a=="D") (P1<- NA) > Warning message: > the condition has length > 1 and only the first > element will be used in: if (a == "D") (P1 <- NA) > > Can anyone help me a) get around it and b) understand > what R is really doing.?MyData$P1 <- ifelse(a=="A", Y1 + Y2, ifelse(a=="B", Y2 + Y3, ifelse(a=="C", Y3 + Y4, ifelse(a=="D", Y4, NA)))) ?ifelse> Thanks > > John Kane, Kingston ON Canada > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >-- Chuck Cleland, Ph.D. NDRI, Inc. 71 West 23rd Street, 8th floor New York, NY 10010 tel: (212) 845-4495 (Tu, Th) tel: (732) 512-0171 (M, W, F) fax: (917) 438-0894