Adding across columns ignoring NA
On 20-07-2013, at 06:37, Jin Choi <oohpsjin at gmail.com> wrote:
I am having difficulty finding a solution to devising an R code to do the following: I have 5 numerical variables and I would like to create a new variable that is the sum of those 5 variables. However, there are many NA values throughout these 5 variables and everytime I run the following code new_variable=var1+var2+var3+var4+var5 I get NA as the sum whenever one of those 5 variables are NA. I cannot figure out a way to have new_variable represent the sum for only those values that are not NA. As an example, if var1=3 var2=3 var3=NA var4=NA var5=2 I would like new_variable to be 8 but I keep getting NA and I have unsuccessfully tried different methods to do so. I feel there is a simple method to solve my problem but I am unaware of such. I would appreciate any guidance!
?sum Have a look at the na.rm argument of sum. Berend