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Unused argument error in ifelse statement using R

I'm trying to make a new data frame based on an ifelse statement. I'm checking in 1 dataframe to see whether a field contains a string. If it does, I then want to add rows from that dataframe to another data frame, using filter, subset, and rbind methods:

This works:

  #Check to see if field contains string. 
  timeline.data.2 <-ifelse(grepl(1043-1, prescription.data$case_id), 
                                timeline.data <- timeline.data %>%
                                  filter(case_id==1043-1),          

                                "do nothing")

This does not:

  #Check to see if field contains string. 
  timeline.data.2 <-ifelse(grepl(1043-1, prescription.data$case_id), 
                                timeline.data <- timeline.data %>%
                                  filter(case_id==1043-1),
                                timeline.data <-subset(timeline.data, select = c(event,group,start,end,color,tooltip)),
                                timeline.data <- subset(prescription.data, select = c(event,group,start,end,color,tooltip)),
                                timeline.data <- rbind(timeline.data, prescription.data),
                                "do nothing")

I'm getting the error:

Error in ifelse(grepl(1043 - 1, prescription.data$case_id), timeline.data <- timeline.data %>%  : 
unused argument ("do nothing")

What am I doing wrong here?

Solution

  • It may be better to use if/else

    library(dplyr)
if(any(grepl("1043-1", prescription.data$case_id))) {

    timeline.data <- timeline.data %>%
                        filter(grepl("1043-1", case_id))

 } else "do nothing"