If Loop I Think

The routine you suggested worked once I changed RunnerFirst, Second, & Third
to character vectors.

But I really don't understand what the code is doing.  I understand the
Ifelse(no-character in RunnerFirst vector) but the 0,1,0 is a mystery.  I
assume the first zero is if the field is blank and a one if there is
something in the field.  But what does the third number do?  And why is a >
symbol used as opposed to an = sign?

Again the bigger question is how do I learn this stuff?  I bought another
book, "R Projects for Dummies".  I will work through the examples over the
next week and hope I'll know more once I'm done.

Can you suggest any other sources?

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lemon
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2019 3:26 PM
To: Phillip Heinrich
Cc: r-help
Subject: Re: [R] If Loop I Think

Hi Philip,
Try this:

phdf<-read.table(
text="Row Outs RunnerFirst RunnerSecond RunnerThird R1 R2 R3
1 0
2 1
3 1
4 1 arenn001
5 2 arenn001
6 0
7 0 perad001
8 0 polla001 perad001
9 0 goldp001 polla001 perad001
10 0  lambj001 goldp001
11 1  lambj001 goldp001
12 2   lambj001
13 0
14 1       ",
header=TRUE,stringsAsFactors=FALSE,fill=TRUE)
phdf$R1<-ifelse(nchar(phdf$RunnerFirst) > 0,1,0)
phdf$R2<-ifelse(nchar(phdf$RunnerSecond) > 0,1,0)
phdf$R3<-ifelse(nchar(phdf$RunnerThird) > 0,1,0)

Jim

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 7:54 AM Phillip Heinrich <herd_dog at cox.net> wrote:

      Row Outs RunnerFirst RunnerSecond RunnerThird R1 R2 R3
      1 0
      2 1
      3 1
      4 1 arenn001
      5 2 arenn001
      6 0
      7 0 perad001
      8 0 polla001 perad001
      9 0 goldp001 polla001 perad001
      10 0  lambj001 goldp001
      11 1  lambj001 goldp001
      12 2   lambj001
      13 0
      14 1



With the above data, Arizona Diamondbacks baseball, I?m trying to put
zeros into the R1 column is the RunnerFirst column is blank and a one if
the column has a coded entry such as rows 4,5,7,8,& 9.  Similarly I want
zeros in R2 and R3 if RunnerSecond and RunnerThird respectively are blank
and ones if there is an entry.

I?ve tried everything I know how to do such as ?If Loops?, ?If-Then loops?,
?apply?, ?sapply?, etc.  I wrote function below and it ran without errors
but I have no idea what to do with it to accomplish my goal:

R1 <- function(x) {
  if (ari18.test3$RunnerFirst == " "){
       ari18.test3$R1 <- 0
       return(R1)
         }else{
           R1 <- ari18.test3$R1 <- 1
           return(R1)
         }
   }

The name of the data frame is ari18.test3

On a more philosophical note, data handling in R seems to be made up of
thousands of details with no over-riding principles.  I?ve read two books
on R and a number of tutorial and watched several videos but I don?t seem
to be making any progress.  Can anyone suggest videos, or tutorials, or
books that might help?  Database stuff has never been my strong point but
I?m determined to learn.

Thanks,
Philip Heinrich
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