Passing column name to function in R

Question

I am removing NAs from a number of columns of my dataframe. My dataframe name is pretty long but that is required. It looks a bit messy using the command over and over again so I want to make a function that makes it easier to understand what's happening. I did the following:-

ConvNAtoBlank <- function(colname) { dataframe[[colname]][is.na(dataframe[[colname]])] = "" }

This did not work. I have also tried to return the dataframe and assign it again later as:-

dataframe <- ConvNAtoBlank("B") # assuming B is a column name

This does not seem to work either. Is there anything I'm doing wrong here? I started learning R this Monday so I'm still a newbie and I can't figure this out. Any help would be appreciated.

Ronak Shah · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-19 11:55:48Z

You need to return the changed dataframe back at the end of the function. It is a good practice to pass dataframe to the function as well.

ConvNAtoBlank <- function(dataframe, colname) { dataframe[[colname]][is.na(dataframe[[colname]])] = "" dataframe } df <- data.frame(A = c('A', NA, 'B'), B = c(NA, NA, 'A')) ConvNAtoBlank(df, "B") # A B #1 A #2 <NA> #3 B A

akrun · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-19 18:51:00Z

We could use tidyverse methods to pass either quoted/unquoted arguments

library(dplyr) library(tidyr) ConvNAtoBlank <- function(dataframe, colname) { colname <- rlang::ensym(colname) dataframe %>% mutate(!! colname := replace_na(!! colname, "")) }

-testing

df <- data.frame(A = c('A', NA, 'B'), B = c(NA, NA, 'A')) ConvNAtoBlank(df, "B") A B 1 A 2 <NA> 3 B A ConvNAtoBlank(df, B) A B 1 A 2 <NA> 3 B A

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