this works perfectly...
new_data5 <- new_data4[nchar(new_data4$date_abandoned) != 8, ] ...and i can now think of a few different ways to manipulate my data with what ive learned from these tricks, thanks alot David! David Winsemius wrote: > > > On Nov 15, 2009, at 11:00 AM, frenchcr wrote: > >> >> >> Yes they are not in date format, theyre just characters. >> >> the earliest date is 16010000 i originally had one of 0101 00 00 >> (101 years >> BC)...this was a software problem. >> >>> table(nchar(new_data4$date_abandoned)) >> >> 2 8 >> 315732 263 >> >> The 315732 are empty fields i thought. > > They are actually 2 characters wide. > >> The 263 are dates, i want to remove their rows. > > If you want to "remove" the ones that are _not_ 8 characters long, then: > > new_data5 <- new_data4[nchar(new_data4$date_abandoned) != 8, ] > > or: > > new_data5 <- subset(new_data4, date_abandoned != 8) > > -- > David. > >> >> >> >> David Winsemius wrote: >>> >>> >>> On Nov 14, 2009, at 8:43 PM, frenchcr wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> sorry David, >>>> >>>> im really new to R (my first week) and appreciate your help. Also I >>>> dont >>>> always know what info to give people on the forum (although im >>>> starting to >>>> catch the drift). >>>> >>>> heres what i get... >>>> >>>> summary(new_data4$date_abandoned) >>>> Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. >>>> Max. NA's >>>> 16010000 19980000 20010000 19930000 20040000 20090000 315732 >>> >>> So new_data4$data_abandoned is not of type "Date" and is instead a >>> character vector. >>> >>> If you are resisting turning it into a date and want to work with >>> characters, you can, you just need to deal somehow with the items >>> that >>> are not 8 characters wide. What does 315732 represent? How were we >>> supposed to interpret the starting "date" you gave of "01010000"? >>> >>>> nchar("1010000") >>> [1] 7 >>> >>> What does table(nchar(new_data4$date_abandoned)) give you? >>>> >>>>> ls() >>>> [1] "data" "new_data" "new_data2" "new_data3" "new_data4" >>>>> small <- head(new_data4, 20) >>>>> dump("small", 20) >>>> Error in dump("small", 20) : cannot write to this connection >>> >>> >>> Well, sorry, I meant to type dump("small", stdout()) ... As per the >>> Posting Guide. >>> >>> -- >>> David. >>>> >>>> David Winsemius wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Nov 14, 2009, at 5:24 PM, frenchcr wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I tried the following but it does the opposite of what i want: >>>>>> >>>>>> new_data5 <- subset(new_data4, date_abandoned > "01010000") >>>>>> >>>>>> I want to remove the rows with dates and leave just the rows >>>>>> without >>>>>> a date. >>>>>> >>>>>> This removes all the rows that dont have a date in the >>>>>> date_abandoned column >>>>>> >>>>>> ...on a positive note, as i did this next... >>>>>> >>>>>> dim(new_data5) >>>>>> [1] 263 80 >>>>>> >>>>>> ....i now know that i have 263 dates in that column :) >>>>>> >>>>>> I want to remove the 263 rows with dates and leave just the rows >>>>>> without a >>>>>> date. >>>>> >>>>> Con=me on frenchcr. Stop making us guess. Give us enough >>>>> information >>>>> to work with. You asked for something which I construed as saying >>>>> you >>>>> wanted dates greater than the the first day of the year 101. You >>>>> did >>>>> not address this question. >>>>> >>>>> What do you get with str(new_data4) and >>>>> summary(new_data4$date_abandoned) ? In order to know what sort of >>>>> comparison to use we need to know what the data looks like. >>>>> >>>>> Even better if you offered the output from: >>>>> >>>>> small <- head(new_data4, 20) >>>>> dump("small", 20), >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> David >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> David Winsemius wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Nov 14, 2009, at 1:21 PM, frenchcr wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I want to go through a column in data called >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Bad name for a data.frame. Fortunes, "dog" and all that. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> date_abandoned....data["date_abandoned"]....and remove all the >>>>>>>> rows >>>>>>>> that >>>>>>>> have numbers greater than 1,010,000. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Are you doing archeology? Given what you say next I wondered what >>>>>>> range you were really asking for. >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The dates are in the format 20091114 so i'm just going to treat >>>>>>>> them >>>>>>>> as >>>>>>>> numbers for clean up purposes. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I know that i use subset but not sure how to proceed from there. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> subdata <- subset(data, date_abandoned > "01010000"() >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The problem with > "1010000" is that your specified minimum point >>>>>>> had >>>>>>> an insufficient number of "places" to be in YYYYMMDD format. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> >>>>>>> David Winsemius, MD >>>>>>> Heritage Laboratories >>>>>>> West Hartford, CT >>>>>>> >>>>>>> ______________________________________________ >>>>>>> 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. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> View this message in context: >>>>>> http://old.nabble.com/remove-row-if-the-column-%22date_abandoned%22-has-a-date-in-it-tp26352457p26354446.html >>>>>> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >>>>>> >>>>>> ______________________________________________ >>>>>> 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. >>>>> >>>>> David Winsemius, MD >>>>> Heritage Laboratories >>>>> West Hartford, CT >>>>> >>>>> ______________________________________________ >>>>> 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. >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> View this message in context: >>>> http://old.nabble.com/remove-row-if-the-column-%22date_abandoned%22-has-a-date-in-it-tp26352457p26355689.html >>>> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >>>> >>>> ______________________________________________ >>>> 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. >>> >>> David Winsemius, MD >>> Heritage Laboratories >>> West Hartford, CT >>> >>> ______________________________________________ >>> 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. >>> >>> >> >> -- >> View this message in context: >> http://old.nabble.com/remove-row-if-the-column-%22date_abandoned%22-has-a-date-in-it-tp26352457p26360384.html >> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >> ______________________________________________ >> 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. > > David Winsemius, MD > Heritage Laboratories > West Hartford, CT > > ______________________________________________ > 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. > > -- View this message in context: http://old.nabble.com/remove-row-if-the-column-%22date_abandoned%22-has-a-date-in-it-tp26352457p26362058.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ 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.