Creating a new variable with amount of non-NA variables

Question

I am new to R and using it for my studies in PSychology.

Right now, I am analyzing a survey with 5 open text fields at the end. What interests me, is the amount of filled out text fields. That is why I need to create a new variable ('behave') that contains the information of how many of these text fields were filled out by each participant.

#right now the df looks similar to this (t= text field filled out): 

S1 <- c(T,T,NA,T)
S2 <- c(T,NA,NA,T)
S3 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S4 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S5 <- c(NA,NA,NA,NA)


#and this is what I want it to look like: 

S1 <- c(T,T,NA,T)
S2 <- c(T,NA,NA,T)
S3 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S4 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S5 <- c(NA,NA,NA,NA)
behave<- c(4, 1, 0, 2)

I tried to use ifelse to somehow work my way to this variable but this seems very complicated and prone to mistakes. That is why I wanted to ask whether there was a more simple way to do that.

You can use `rowSums(!is.na(data.frame(S1, S2, S3, S4, S5)))` if your "T" is actual text. — benson23, Aug 02 '23 at 09:27
@DarrenTsai That will count `TRUE` values but I think OP wants to count non-NA values. `rowSums(! is.na(df))` would be the ticket. — Konrad Rudolph, Aug 02 '23 at 09:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 02 '23 at 09:31

0

S1 <- c(T,T,NA,T)
S2 <- c(T,NA,NA,T)
S3 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S4 <- c(T,NA,NA,NA)
S5 <- c(NA,NA,NA,NA)

res<-data.frame(S1,S2,S3,S4,S5)

apply(res,1,function(x) sum(!is.na(x)))

4 1 0 2

answered Aug 02 '23 at 09:31

Dimitrios Zacharatos

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See comments below the question; `apply` works but is more complex and slower than necessary. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 02 '23 at 09:32
you think I should remove it? if you think so I will – Dimitrios Zacharatos Aug 02 '23 at 09:33
I don’t think this is the solution that OP should use but importantly it is *a* solution, and it might teach OP something. So I don’t think you need to remove it, and I didn’t downvote it (which I would have done if I had thought it a bad answer). – Konrad Rudolph Aug 02 '23 at 09:37
In that case I will just leave it and see how it goes, thanks for the feedback – Dimitrios Zacharatos Aug 02 '23 at 09:40

Creating a new variable with amount of non-NA variables

1 Answers1