Just for the record, a less efficient but certainly simple and maybe adequate way for you to do it in standard R (no zoo package required) is:
for(i in seq_along(x)[-1])if(is.na(x[i])) x[i] <- x[i-1] I tried timing it on my not so fancy Windows desktop for a vector of 10,000 values, but it was instantaneous. Loops may be relatively inefficient in R, but how relatively inefficient is ... well, ... relative. (If you didn't have zoo installed, how long does it take to install? -- perhaps a red herring, but ...) Cheers, Bert Gunter Genentech -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dimitris Rizopoulos Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 12:26 PM To: Owen Jones Cc: r-help@r-project.org Subject: Re: [R] Fill in NA values in vector with previous character/factor try function na.locf() from package 'zoo', i.e., library(zoo) x <- c("A","B",NA,NA,"C",NA,NA,NA,NA,"D",NA,NA) na.locf(x) I hope it helps. Best, Dimitris ---- Dimitris Rizopoulos Biostatistical Centre School of Public Health Catholic University of Leuven Address: Kapucijnenvoer 35, Leuven, Belgium Tel: +32/(0)16/336899 Fax: +32/(0)16/337015 Web: http://med.kuleuven.be/biostat/ http://perswww.kuleuven.be/dimitris_rizopoulos/ Quoting Owen Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I have a vector of data (species names) interspersed with NA values and > I want a function to "fill in the blanks", replacing NA values with > whatever the last species name was. > > For example the vector: > > "A","B",NA,NA,"C",NA,NA,NA,NA,"D",NA,NA. > > should evaluate to: > > "A" "B" "B" "B" "C" "C" "C" "C" "C" "D" "D" "D" > > > I tried to use rle() in a function to do this but have hit a brick wall. > > How would YOU do this? > > Many thanks, > > Owen > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org 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. Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org 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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org 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.
