[R] Coalesce function in BBmisc, emoa, and microbenchmark packages

[Paul Miller]

Hi Brian,

This works very well. Still trying to develop some skill with R. So can't say I understand your function completely as yet, but will work on it. I had thought that your function might only work for two columns (because of the "function(x,y)" part), but the example below suggests it will work for any number of columns. 

Appreciate your showing this to me. 

Thanks,

Paul  


Demog <- data.frame(PFS = as.Date(c("2006-07-22", NA, "2007-12-16", "2008-01-19", "2009-05-05", "2006-04-29", "2006-06-18", NA)),
			  DOD = as.Date(c("2006-07-23", "2008-07-09", "2007-12-16", "2008-01-19", "2009-05-05", "2006-04-29", "2006-06-18", NA)),
                    LKDA = as.Date(c(NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, NA, "2008-03-25")))

coalesce <- function(...) {
     dots <- list(...)
     ret <- Reduce(function (x,y) ifelse(!is.na(x),x,y), dots)
     class(ret) <- class(dots[[1]])
     ret
}

Demog$Test <- with(Demog, coalesce(PFS, DOD, LKDA))