When I am using casewhen() and mutate() it's not saving the new variable in the dataframe

Question

I might be using it wrong, but when I use the code below it only prints out a summary statement. Is there a way to save this output in a new variable?

    data %>%
mutate(motivation = case_when(DRG_WHY_TRY == 1 ~ 'experimentation'
,DRG_WHY_SLP == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_RLX == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_PAN == 1 ~ 'medical'
,DRG_WHY_NTH == 1 ~ 'bored'
,DRG_WHY_NCN == 1 ~ 'no conseq'
,DRG_WHY_MED == 1 ~ 'medical'
,DRG_WHY_HIG == 1 ~ 'enhancement'
,DRG_WHY_FUN == 1 ~ 'social'
,DRG_WHY_FRD == 1 ~ 'conformity'
,DRG_WHY_FGT == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_FEL == 1 ~ 'enhancement'
,DRG_WHY_ANX == 1 ~ 'cope'
,TRUE ~ 'else'))

Or if you want to update your current data object `data <- data %>% ...` — Gregor Thomas, Mar 02 '23 at 17:53
Mutate is a pure function. It doesn't change its input data frame, it only returns a modified copy (that you may choose to assign to a new object) — Bill O'Brien, Mar 02 '23 at 18:13

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 02 '23 at 17:55

As the comment says, you need to use the assignment operator <- to save it as a new variable. The pipe operator just feeds the dataset through without saving the modified result.

data <- data %>%
mutate(motivation = case_when(DRG_WHY_TRY == 1 ~ 'experimentation'
,DRG_WHY_SLP == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_RLX == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_PAN == 1 ~ 'medical'
,DRG_WHY_NTH == 1 ~ 'bored'
,DRG_WHY_NCN == 1 ~ 'no conseq'
,DRG_WHY_MED == 1 ~ 'medical'
,DRG_WHY_HIG == 1 ~ 'enhancement'
,DRG_WHY_FUN == 1 ~ 'social'
,DRG_WHY_FRD == 1 ~ 'conformity'
,DRG_WHY_FGT == 1 ~ 'cope'
,DRG_WHY_FEL == 1 ~ 'enhancement'
,DRG_WHY_ANX == 1 ~ 'cope'
,TRUE ~ 'else'))

When I am using casewhen() and mutate() it's not saving the new variable in the dataframe

1 Answers1