Finding the Column Index for a Specific Value
- by Btibert3
Hi All,
I am having a brain cramp. Below is a toy dataset:
df <- data.frame(
id = 1:6,
v1 = c("a", "a", "c", NA, "g", "h"),
v2 = c("z", "y", "a", NA, "a", "g"),
stringsAsFactors=F)
I have a specific value that I want to find across a set of defined columns and I want to identify the position it is located in. The fields I am searching are characters and the trick is that the value I am looking for might not exist. In addition, null strings are also present in the dataset.
Assuming I knew how to do this, the variable position indicates the values I would like returned.
> df
id v1 v2 position
1 1 a z 1
2 2 a y 1
3 3 c a 2
4 4 <NA> <NA> 99
5 5 g a 2
6 6 h g 99
The general rule is that I want to find the position of value "a", and if it is not located or if v1 is missing, then I want 99 returned.
In this instance, I am searching across v1 and v2, but in reality, I have 10 different variables. It is also worth noting that the value I am searching for can only exist once across the 10 variables.
What is the best way to generate this recode?
Many thanks in advance.
