Hi, You did not specify what assumptions you can make about xf and xg (such as will they have identical lengths and is it possible both could contain nonmissing values in the same element?), but this seems a straightforward approach in your little example:
index <- is.na(xf) xf[index] <- xg[index] HTH, Josh On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 6:59 PM, Erin Hodgess <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear R People: > > Suppose I have the following two character vectors: > > xf > [1] "W" NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA >> xg > [1] NA "k" "h" NA "g" "r" "j" NA "v" "d" NA "v" NA "z" "r" "r" "i" >> > > I want to end up with > > "W" "k" "h" ... > > What is the best way to achieve this, please? I was thinking that if > there is an exclusive "or" that it might work. I've tried all kinds > of ifs, and ifelse, to no avail. > > > Thanks, > Erin > > > -- > Erin Hodgess > Associate Professor > Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences > University of Houston - Downtown > mailto: [email protected] > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Joshua Wiley Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology University of California, Los Angeles http://www.joshuawiley.com/ ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

