I'm stuck here. The following code works great if I just use it on the command line in a 'for' loop. Once I try to define it as a function as seen below, I get bad results. I'm trying to return a vector of column indices based on a short string that is contained in a selection (length of about 70) of long column names that changes from time to time. Is there an existing function that will do this for me? The more I think about this problem, the more I feel there has to be a function out there. I've not found it.
ind <- function(col, string, vector){ # this is really the problem. I don't feel like I'm declaring these arguments properly. indices <- vector(mode = 'numeric') # I am not entirely confident that this use is necessary. Is indices <- c() okay? for (i in 1:length(col)){ num <- regexpr(str, col[i]) if (num != -1){ indices <- c(vector, i) # I've also had success with indices <- append(indices, i) } } indices } ind(d[,'Column.I.want'], 'string', 'output.vector') Am I wrong here? I've read that the last statement in the function is what it will return, and what I want is a vector of integers. Thanks, -Ben [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ 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.