How do you apply a function that has multiple inputs across multiple columns?

Question

I have a function that takes in two arguments (columns). The function changes the value of one column (x) based on what the value in another column is (y).

fun <- function(x, y) {
  x = coalesce(case_when(y %in% c("hello", "hi") ~ '1',
            y == "thanks" ~ '2'), x)
}

However, this needs to be done over many column pairs, why I want to make it a function.

Is this the right way of doing it:

df %>% mutate(across(c(col1, col3), c(col2, col4), fun))

from

col1     col2     col3     col4
1                 1
2                 4
5       "hello"   5        "hello"
3               
4                 4
5       "hi"      5        "thanks"
5       "thanks" 
5       "goodbye" 5        "hello"

To

col1     col2     col3     col4
1                 1
2                 4
1       "hello"   1        "hello"
3               
4                 4
1       "hi"      2        "thanks"
2       "thanks" 
5       "goodbye" 1        "hello"

akrun · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-02T15:38:28.663

2

If it is pairwise, then we may need map2 which returns a list of vectors which can be assigned to new columns to the existing column of dataset (not clear from the code)

library(purrr)
library(dplyr)
fun <- function(data, x, y) {
     coalesce(case_when(data[[y]] %in% c("hello", "hi") ~ 1,
           data[[y]] == "thanks" ~ 2), data[[x]])
}
df[c("col1", "col3")] <- map2( c("col1", "col3"),
     c("col2", "col4"), ~  fun(df, .x, .y))

-output

> df
  col1    col2 col3   col4
1    1    <NA>    1   <NA>
2    2    <NA>    4   <NA>
3    1   hello    1  hello
4    3    <NA>   NA   <NA>
5    4    <NA>    4   <NA>
6    1      hi    2 thanks
7    2  thanks   NA   <NA>
8    5 goodbye    1  hello

data

df <- structure(list(col1 = c(1L, 2L, 5L, 3L, 4L, 5L, 5L, 5L), col2 = c(NA, 
NA, "hello", NA, NA, "hi", "thanks", "goodbye"), col3 = c(1L, 
4L, 5L, NA, 4L, 5L, NA, 5L), col4 = c(NA, NA, "hello", NA, NA, 
"thanks", NA, "hello")), class = "data.frame", row.names = c(NA, 
-8L))

edited Mar 02 '22 at 15:38

answered Feb 28 '22 at 15:42

akrun

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I get this error: Error in !.y : invalid argument type – Victor Nielsen Feb 28 '22 at 18:24
forgot to add the @ – Victor Nielsen Feb 28 '22 at 18:31
@VictorNielsen Try by removing the `!!` (sorry I didn't test it as there was no reproducible example) – akrun Feb 28 '22 at 22:31
I might have to make one then. But when I remove the !! it says Error: negative length vectors not allowed. And the dataset has become a list of 8. – Victor Nielsen Mar 01 '22 at 08:48
I added an example – Victor Nielsen Mar 01 '22 at 13:23
Hello @akrun. Just adding @ as it gets removed for some reason. – Victor Nielsen Mar 02 '22 at 13:42
@VictorNielsen thanks. I just saw your data. Is the data blanks `NA` or `""`? – akrun Mar 02 '22 at 15:24
The data is NA @akrun. – Victor Nielsen Mar 02 '22 at 15:27
@VictorNielsen I updated with the code – akrun Mar 02 '22 at 15:39

How do you apply a function that has multiple inputs across multiple columns?

1 Answers1

data