[R] Setting NA to blank

Petr PIKAL petr.pikal at precheza.cz
Tue May 10 07:28:14 CEST 2011


Hi

> Re: [R] Setting NA to blank
> 
> I asked because I thought it'd solve an issue I had. I was actually 
being
> quite rash in asking this question and for that, I apologize.
> 
> I wanted to know because I was attempting to create a heatmap where the 
NA
> values would not be shown while all the outputs with actual numerical 
value
> will be shown. I had assumed that setting the NA's to blanks would fix 
the
> issue, but it hadn't. I refrained from immediately asking another 
question
> so I that I can look further into this.

If you used heatmap function from stats package I believe that NA values 
are not displayed so they appear as white. So basically you should not 
need any change.

It is usually better then assume what you think the functions are doing to 
learn what they actually do by consulting help page. 

You could also try examples provided at bottom of almost each help page 
and modify it to suit your needs.

Regards
Petr



> 
> I hope that answers your question.
> 
> On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Ted Harding 
<ted.harding at wlandres.net>wrote:
> 
> > John Kane's reply sums it up! (Though you could use "",
> > instead of " ", which would give you an "empty string"
> > instead of the "space" character; but the resulting
> > matrix would still consist entirely of "character"
> > elements).
> >
> > However, the real reason I am following up is to ask
> > why you want the blank instead of the NA.
> >
> > If it is just for printing out or display, then the
> > fact that the matrix has been converted to character
> > probably does not matter.
> >
> > But if it is for compatibility with some other
> > computational software that (e.g.) expects missing
> > values to be represented by a blank, or some "null"
> > representation, then it may not be so straightforward.
> >
> > So, if that might be an issue, please describe for us
> > how you intend to use the result.
> >
> > Ted.
> >
> > On 09-May-11 19:56:39, Dat Mai wrote:
> > > Thank you kind sir!
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 3:25 PM, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> 
wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> (mat <- matrix(c(1,2,3,NA),2))
> > >> mat[is.na(mat)]   <- " "
> > >> mat
> > >>
> > >> But if you have a numerical matrix it coverts the matrix to 
character.
> > >>
> > >> --- On Mon, 5/9/11, Dat Mai <dat.d.mai at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > From: Dat Mai <dat.d.mai at gmail.com>
> > >> > Subject: [R]  Setting NA to blank
> > >> > To: r-help at r-project.org
> > >> > Received: Monday, May 9, 2011, 2:46 PM
> > >> > Hey All,
> > >> >
> > >> > I have a matrix m, and I wish to set all the NA values to
> > >> > blank. How would I
> > >> > do so?
> > >> >
> > >> > --
> > >> > Best,
> > >> > Dat Mai
> > >> > PhD Rotation Student
> > >> > Albert Einstein College of Medicine
> >
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding at wlandres.net>
> > Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> > Date: 09-May-11                                       Time: 21:21:07
> > ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Best,
> Dat Mai
> PhD Rotation Student
> Albert Einstein College of Medicine
> 
>    [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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