Odd behavior of a function within apply

Could you have columns that are not character or integer so that y is
never defined in the function?

count1a(1:5/3)
Error in count1a(1:5/3) : object 'y' not found

David Carlson


On Mon, Aug 8, 2022 at 1:35 PM Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess at gmail.com>
wrote:

OK.?? I'm back again.?? So my test1.??df is 236x390 If I put in the
following:?? lapply(test1.??df,count1a) Error in FUN(X[[i]], .??.??.??) :??
object 'y' not found > lapply(test1.??df,count1a) Error in FUN(X[[i]],
.??.??.??) :?? object 'y' not found > sapply(test1.??df,count1a)
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OK.  I'm back again.

So my test1.df is 236x390

If I put in the following:
 lapply(test1.df,count1a)
Error in FUN(X[[i]], ...) : object 'y' not found

lapply(test1.df,count1a)

Error in FUN(X[[i]], ...) : object 'y' not found

sapply(test1.df,count1a)

Error in FUN(X[[i]], ...) : object 'y' not found

What am I doing wrong, please?
Thanks,
Erin


Erin Hodgess, PhD
mailto: erinm.hodgess at gmail.com


On Mon, Aug 8, 2022 at 1:41 PM Erin Hodgess <erinm.hodgess at gmail.com> wrote:

Awesome, thanks so much!!

Erin Hodgess, PhD
mailto: erinm.hodgess at gmail.com


On Mon, Aug 8, 2022 at 1:38 PM John Fox <jfox at mcmaster.ca> wrote:

Dear Erin,

The problem is that the data frame gets coerced to a character matrix,
and the only column with "" entries is the 9th (the second one you
supplied):

as.matrix(test1.df)
    X1_1_HZP1 X1_1_HBM1_mon X1_1_HBM1_yr
1  "48160"   "December"    "2014"
2  "48198"   "June"        "2018"
3  "80027"   "August"      "2016"
4  "48161"   ""            NA
5  NA        ""            NA
6  "48911"   "August"      "1985"
7  NA        "April"       "2019"
8  "48197"   "February"    "1993"
9  "48021"   ""            NA
10 "11355"   "December"    "1990"

(Here, test1.df only contains the three columns you provided.)

A solution is to use sapply:

 > sapply(test1.df, count1a)

     X1_1_HZP1 X1_1_HBM1_mon  X1_1_HBM1_yr
             2             3             3


I hope this helps,
  John


On 2022-08-08 1:22 p.m., Erin Hodgess wrote:

Hello!

I have the following data.frame
  dput(test1.df[1:10,8:10])
structure(list(X1_1_HZP1 = c(48160L, 48198L, 80027L, 48161L,
NA, 48911L, NA, 48197L, 48021L, 11355L), X1_1_HBM1_mon = c("December",
"June", "August", "", "", "August", "April", "February", "",
"December"), X1_1_HBM1_yr = c(2014L, 2018L, 2016L, NA, NA, 1985L,
2019L, 1993L, NA, 1990L)), row.names = c(NA, 10L), class = "data.frame")

And the following function:

dput(count1a)

function (x)
{
     if (typeof(x) == "integer")
         y <- sum(is.na(x))
     if (typeof(x) == "character")
         y <- sum(x == "")
     return(y)
}
When I use the apply function with count1a, I get the following:
  apply(test1.df[1:10,8:10],2,count1a)
     X1_1_HZP1 X1_1_HBM1_mon  X1_1_HBM1_yr
            NA             3            NA
However, when I do use columns 8 and 10, I get the correct response:
  apply(test1.df[1:10,c(8,10)],2,count1a)
    X1_1_HZP1 X1_1_HBM1_yr
            2            3

I am really baffled.  If I use count1a on a single column, it works

fine.

Any suggestions much appreciated.
Thanks,
Sincerely,
Erin


Erin Hodgess, PhD
mailto: erinm.hodgess at gmail.com

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