Jim, The next step for understanding what happens is to subset a complicated expression and see what its sub-pieces are doing. Since apply(a[!is.na(a)],2,sum) doesn't work, start by looking at each of the arguments to apply. You already verified that !is.na(a) gives what you want. Now take the next step and see that a[!is.na(a)] doesn't give what you want.
Looking at nested sets of sub-expressions is the key to learning R. Rich [[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.