I have a subset of data that I have identified as "suspect" (for example, the first name has excessive spaces, is longer than 35 characters or has a number).
What I want to do is update the FNAME_SUSPECT field in "mydata" to TRUE if any of those conditions are met. Here's my data: > dput(mydata) structure(list(PERSON_FIRST_NAME = c("1298530", "JULIA, TAYLOR, CS AND JEFF", "88", "4465891170098562", "1124211", "LEWIS & MARY KAY", "KARL R O S", "5466181820076010", "JULI0 C", "WAYNE T.", "1124211", "1124211", "ROBERT B & VIONA D", "DENNIS and MARY SUE", "BRIAN JOANNE", "1124211", "RONALD and GAIL", "Mike and Mary Lou", "31763006", "7", "11460735", "Paul and Mary Beth", "JIMMY and RUTH MARIE", "1124211", "WAYNE & LU ANN", "SCOTT & ANNA MARIE", "1124211", "1124211", "952714", "DAVID, RHONDA and NATALIE", "VIRGINIA S", "707069", "4397836190001917", "MARIA DE LA LUZ", "MARIA DE LA LUZ", "G & S COMPUTERIZED GRADING", "1124211", "1124211", "1124211", "1124211", "MARIA DE LA LUZ", "ED AND JANICE KISHI", "1124211", "Garrett A. and Jenny E.", "1124211", "1124211", "Hiram T. and A. Judith", "MA DE LA LUZ", "STEVE, Bev, and Caleb", "MR AND MRS EVER"), FNAME_SUSPECT = c(FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE, FALSE), FNAME_LENGTH = c(7L, 26L, 2L, 16L, 7L, 16L, 10L, 16L, 7L, 10L, 7L, 7L, 18L, 19L, 14L, 7L, 16L, 17L, 8L, 1L, 8L, 18L, 20L, 7L, 14L, 18L, 7L, 7L, 6L, 25L, 12L, 6L, 16L, 15L, 15L, 26L, 7L, 7L, 7L, 7L, 15L, 19L, 7L, 23L, 7L, 7L, 22L, 12L, 21L, 15L), FNAME_PATTERN = c("9999999", "AAAAA,_AAAAAA,_AA_AAA_AAAA", "99", "9999999999999999", "9999999", "AAAAA_&_AAAA_AAA", "AAAA_A_A_A", "9999999999999999", "AAAA9_A", "AAAAA___A.", "9999999", "9999999", "AAAAAA_A_&_AAAAA_A", "AAAAAA_AAA_AAAA_AAA", "AAAAA___AAAAAA", "9999999", "AAAAAA_AAA__AAAA", "AAAA_AAA_AAAA_AAA", "99999999", "9", "99999999", "AAAA_AAA_AAAA_AAAA", "AAAAA_AAA_AAAA_AAAAA", "9999999", "AAAAA_&_AA_AAA", "AAAAA_&_AAAA_AAAAA", "9999999", "9999999", "999999", "AAAAA,_AAAAAA_AAA_AAAAAAA", "AAAAAAAA___A", "999999", "9999999999999999", "AAAAA_AA_AA_AAA", "AAAAA_AA_AA_AAA", "A_&_A_AAAAAAAAAAAA_AAAAAAA", "9999999", "9999999", "9999999", "9999999", "AAAAA_AA_AA_AAA", "AA_AAA_AAAAAA_AAAAA", "9999999", "AAAAAAA_A._AAA_AAAAA_A.", "9999999", "9999999", "AAAAA_A._AAA_A._AAAAAA", "AA_AA_AA_AAA", "AAAAA,_AAA,_AAA_AAAAA", "AA_AAA_AAA_AAAA" ), FNAME_TOKEN_COUNT = c(1L, 5L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 2L, 4L, 1L, 1L, 5L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 5L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 4L, 4L, 1L, 5L, 1L, 1L, 5L, 4L, 4L, 4L)), .Names = c("PERSON_FIRST_NAME", "FNAME_SUSPECT", "FNAME_LENGTH", "FNAME_PATTERN", "FNAME_TOKEN_COUNT" ), row.names = c(6717L, 11035L, 11626L, 14965L, 17874L, 24341L, 25582L, 25834L, 26851L, 30134L, 36385L, 45244L, 46947L, 61449L, 67564L, 71465L, 73782L, 75278L, 78977L, 79037L, 80577L, 81644L, 84427L, 86286L, 89963L, 91208L, 94054L, 99518L, 114658L, 128305L, 129082L, 137492L, 137573L, 138556L, 139489L, 148757L, 153956L, 155546L, 160533L, 162386L, 162681L, 165220L, 168063L, 173003L, 175322L, 179935L, 180991L, 181215L, 183787L, 184573L), class = "data.frame") Note I defaulted all of the FNAME_SUSPECT to FALSE. I plan to change that later. I've tried running this: if(mydata$FNAME_TOKEN_COUNT > 3 | mydata$FNAME_LENGTH > 35 | regexpr("9", mydata$FNAME_PATTERN) > 0) mydata$FNAME_SUSPECT <- TRUE however I get the error: Warning message: In if (mydata$FNAME_TOKEN_COUNT > 3 | mydata$FNAME_LENGTH > 35 | : the condition has length > 1 and only the first element will be used Would I be better doing this in a for loop? I had once heard that if you're doing a for loop in R, you're doing something wrong. -- Jeff [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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.