r - Replace given value in vector

Question

I'm looking for a function which will replace all occurrences of one value with another value. For example I'd like to replace all zeros with ones. I don't want to have to store the result in a variable, but want to be able to use the vector anonymously as part of a larger expression.

I know how to write a suitable function myself:

> vrepl <- function(haystack, needle, replacement) {
+   haystack[haystack == needle] <- replacement
+   return(haystack)
+ }
> 
> vrepl(c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0), 0, 1)
[1] 3 2 1 1 4 1

But I'm wondering whether there is some standard function to do this job, preferrably from the base package, as an alternative from some other commonly used package. I believe that using such a standard will likely make my code more readable, and I won't have to redefine that function wherever I need it.

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11737193/replace-given-value-in-vector

Answer 1

Perhaps replace is what you are looking for:

> x = c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0)
> replace(x, x==0, 1)
[1] 3 2 1 1 4 1

Or, if you don't have x (any specific reason why not?):

replace(c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0), c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0)==0, 1)

Many people are familiar with gsub, so you can also try either of the following:

as.numeric(gsub(0, 1, x))
as.numeric(gsub(0, 1, c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0)))

Update

After reading the comments, perhaps with is an option:

with(data.frame(x = c(3, 2, 1, 0, 4, 0)), replace(x, x == 0, 1))