R help - Feb 2012 - Assigning a function to the 'times' argument of rep()

Question: 

I'm trying to use paste() with rep() to reformat a series of values as zip
codes. e.g., if column 1 looks like:

52775
83111
99240
4289
112
57701
20001

I want rows 4 and 5 to read,

"04289"
"00112"

My thought was this:
> perry_frame$zip <- ifelse(nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip))<5,
 
paste(rep("0",times=(5-nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip)))),perry_frame$zip,sep=''),
  as.character(perry_frame$zip))

But R throws the following:

Error in rep("0", times = (5 - nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip))))
:
  invalid 'times' argument

Is there a reason this doesn't work?

Thanks,

Zack

--
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On 13-02-2012, at 04:56, z2.0 wrote:
> Question: 
> 
> I'm trying to use paste() with rep() to reformat a series of values as
zip
> codes. e.g., if column 1 looks like:
> 
> 52775
> 83111
> 99240
> 4289
> 112
> 57701
> 20001
> 
> I want rows 4 and 5 to read,
> 
> "04289"
> "00112"
This might help

x <- c(52775, 83111, 99240, 4289, 112, 57701, 20001)
> formatC(x,format="d", flag="0", width=5)
[1] "52775" "83111" "99240" "04289"
"00112" "57701" "20001"

Berend

?formatC

HTH,
Jorge.-*
*

On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 10:56 PM, z2.0 <> wrote:
> Question:
>
> I'm trying to use paste() with rep() to reformat a series of values as
zip
> codes. e.g., if column 1 looks like:
>
> 52775
> 83111
> 99240
> 4289
> 112
> 57701
> 20001
>
> I want rows 4 and 5 to read,
>
> "04289"
> "00112"
>
> My thought was this:
>
> > perry_frame$zip <-
ifelse(nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip))<5,
>
>
>
paste(rep("0",times=(5-nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip)))),perry_frame$zip,sep=''),
>  as.character(perry_frame$zip))
>
> But R throws the following:
>
> Error in rep("0", times = (5 -
nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip)))) :
>  invalid 'times' argument
>
> Is there a reason this doesn't work?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Zack
>
> --
> View this message in context:
>
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Assigning-a-function-to-the-times-argument-of-rep-tp4382849p4382849.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
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On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 07:56:48PM -0800, z2.0 wrote:
> Question: 
> 
> I'm trying to use paste() with rep() to reformat a series of values as
zip
> codes. e.g., if column 1 looks like:
> 
> 52775
> 83111
> 99240
> 4289
> 112
> 57701
> 20001
> 
> I want rows 4 and 5 to read,
> 
> "04289"
> "00112"
> 
> My thought was this:
> 
> > perry_frame$zip <-
ifelse(nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip))<5,
>  
>
paste(rep("0",times=(5-nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip)))),perry_frame$zip,sep=''),
>   as.character(perry_frame$zip))
> 
> But R throws the following:
> 
> Error in rep("0", times = (5 -
nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip)))) :
>   invalid 'times' argument
> 
> Is there a reason this doesn't work?
Hi.

Working solutions were suggested by others. The answer
to your question is that "times" argument should either
be a single number or a vector of the same length as the
first argument. However,

  "0" has length 1

  5 - nchar(as.character(perry_frame$zip))
  [1] 0 0 0 1 2 0 0

Hope this helps.

Petr Savicky.