R 中的“ifelse”的更通用版本？

Question

This is a context where the current version of ifelse in R is appropriate:

score <- NULL
x <- "not available"
y <- "available"

ifelse(is.null(score), x, y)
#> [1] "not available"

But what if I want to use something like ifelse to assign other objects. For example, here I would like to assign dataframes, but the current vectorized version returns the first element (column) of the dataframe instead of the entire dataframe.

score <- NULL
x <- iris
y <- mtcars

ifelse(is.null(score), x, y)
#> [[1]]
#>   [1] 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5.0 5.4 4.6 5.0 4.4 4.9 5.4 4.8 4.8 4.3 5.8 5.7 5.4 5.1
#>  [19] 5.7 5.1 5.4 5.1 4.6 5.1 4.8 5.0 5.0 5.2 5.2 4.7 4.8 5.4 5.2 5.5 4.9 5.0
#>  [37] 5.5 4.9 4.4 5.1 5.0 4.5 4.4 5.0 5.1 4.8 5.1 4.6 5.3 5.0 7.0 6.4 6.9 5.5
#>  [55] 6.5 5.7 6.3 4.9 6.6 5.2 5.0 5.9 6.0 6.1 5.6 6.7 5.6 5.8 6.2 5.6 5.9 6.1
#>  [73] 6.3 6.1 6.4 6.6 6.8 6.7 6.0 5.7 5.5 5.5 5.8 6.0 5.4 6.0 6.7 6.3 5.6 5.5
#>  [91] 5.5 6.1 5.8 5.0 5.6 5.7 5.7 6.2 5.1 5.7 6.3 5.8 7.1 6.3 6.5 7.6 4.9 7.3
#> [109] 6.7 7.2 6.5 6.4 6.8 5.7 5.8 6.4 6.5 7.7 7.7 6.0 6.9 5.6 7.7 6.3 6.7 7.2
#> [127] 6.2 6.1 6.4 7.2 7.4 7.9 6.4 6.3 6.1 7.7 6.3 6.4 6.0 6.9 6.7 6.9 5.8 6.8
#> [145] 6.7 6.7 6.3 6.5 6.2 5.9

So I was wondering if there is a general version of ifelse in R that can do something similar.

Answer 1

You can just use if(test) A else B :

score <- NULL
result <- if(is.null(score)) mtcars else iris
head(result)
#>                    mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
#> Mazda RX4         21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
#> Datsun 710        22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
#> Hornet 4 Drive    21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
#> Valiant           18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1

score <- 1

result <- if(is.null(score)) mtcars else iris
head(result)
#>   Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species
#> 1          5.1         3.5          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 2          4.9         3.0          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 3          4.7         3.2          1.3         0.2  setosa
#> 4          4.6         3.1          1.5         0.2  setosa
#> 5          5.0         3.6          1.4         0.2  setosa
#> 6          5.4         3.9          1.7         0.4  setosa

Or if you need it vectorized like ifelse you could have:

result <- lapply(c(1, 2, 3), function(x)  if(x != 2) iris else mtcars)
str(result)
#> List of 3
#>  $ :'data.frame':    150 obs. of  5 variables:
#>   ..$ Sepal.Length: num [1:150] 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4 4.6 5 4.4 4.9 ...
#>   ..$ Sepal.Width : num [1:150] 3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.4 2.9 3.1 ...
#>   ..$ Petal.Length: num [1:150] 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.5 ...
#>   ..$ Petal.Width : num [1:150] 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 ...
#>   ..$ Species     : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1  ...
#>  $ :'data.frame':    32 obs. of  11 variables:
#>   ..$ mpg : num [1:32] 21 21 22.8 21.4 18.7 18.1 14.3 24.4 22.8 19.2 ...
#>   ..$ cyl : num [1:32] 6 6 4 6 8 6 8 4 4 6 ...
#>   ..$ disp: num [1:32] 160 160 108 258 360 ...
#>   ..$ hp  : num [1:32] 110 110 93 110 175 105 245 62 95 123 ...
#>   ..$ drat: num [1:32] 3.9 3.9 3.85 3.08 3.15 2.76 3.21 3.69 3.92 3.92 ...
#>   ..$ wt  : num [1:32] 2.62 2.88 2.32 3.21 3.44 ...
#>   ..$ qsec: num [1:32] 16.5 17 18.6 19.4 17 ...
#>   ..$ vs  : num [1:32] 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 ...
#>   ..$ am  : num [1:32] 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
#>   ..$ gear: num [1:32] 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 ...
#>   ..$ carb: num [1:32] 4 4 1 1 2 1 4 2 2 4 ...
#>  $ :'data.frame':    150 obs. of  5 variables:
#>   ..$ Sepal.Length: num [1:150] 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4 4.6 5 4.4 4.9 ...
#>   ..$ Sepal.Width : num [1:150] 3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.4 2.9 3.1 ...
#>   ..$ Petal.Length: num [1:150] 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.5 ...
#>   ..$ Petal.Width : num [1:150] 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 ...
#>   ..$ Species     : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1  ...

^{Created on 2020-07-24 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

Answer 2

The ifelse requires all elements to have the same length . The length of data.frame are the number of columns (as it is a list with columns as elements). We could wrap it in a list and then the length will be 1 for test , yes and no

ifelse(is.null(score), list(x), list(y))

Answer 3

I am not sure if the following code is in your favor

list(iris,mtcars)[[is.null(score)+1]]

Answer 4

You can use switch for this purpose.

For example,

a <- NULL
b <- 1

switch (-1*is.null(a)+2, mtcars, iris)

will return mrcars

switch (-1*is.null(b)+2, mtcars, iris)

will return iris