The following dataframe will illustrate the problem DF<-data.frame(name=rep(1:5,each=2),x1=rep("A",10),x2=seq(10,19,by=1),x3=rep(NA,10),x4=seq(20,29,by=1)) DF$x3[5]<-50
# we have a data frame. we are interested in the columns x2,x3,x4 which contain sparse # values and many NA. DF name x1 x2 x3 x4 1 1 A 10 NA 20 2 1 A 11 NA 21 3 2 A 12 NA 22 4 2 A 13 NA 23 5 3 A 14 50 24 6 3 A 15 NA 25 7 4 A 16 NA 26 8 4 A 17 NA 27 9 5 A 18 NA 28 10 5 A 19 NA 29 # we have a list of "target values that we want to search for in the data frame # if the value is in the data frame we want to keep it there, otherwise, replace it with NA targets<-c(11,12,13,16,19,50,27,24,22,26) # so we apply a test by column to the last 3 columns using the "in" test # this gives us a mask of whether the data frame 'contains' elements in the # target list mask<-apply(DF[,3:5],2, "%in%" ,targets) mask x2 x3 x4 [1,] FALSE FALSE FALSE [2,] TRUE FALSE FALSE [3,] TRUE FALSE TRUE [4,] TRUE FALSE FALSE [5,] FALSE TRUE TRUE [6,] FALSE FALSE FALSE [7,] TRUE FALSE TRUE [8,] FALSE FALSE TRUE [9,] FALSE FALSE FALSE [10,] TRUE FALSE FALSE # and so DF[2,3] is equal to 11 and 11 is in the target list, so the mask is True # now something like DF<- ifelse(mask==T,DF,NA) is CONCEPTUALLY what I want to do in the end I'd Like a result that looks like name x1 x2 x3 x4 1 1 A NA NA NA 2 1 A 11 NA NA 3 2 A 12 NA 22 4 2 A 13 NANA 5 3 A NA 50 24 6 3 A NA NA NA 7 4 A 16 NA 26 8 4 A NA NA 27 9 5 A NA NA NA 10 5 A 19 NA NA Ive tried forcing the DF and the mask into vectors so that ifelse() would work and have tried "apply" using ifelse.. without much luck. any thoughts? [[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.