R - Populate one data frame with values from another dataframe, based on row matching

Question

I'm trying to replace values in myDF1 from myDF2, where rows match for column "studyno" but the solutions I have found so far don't seem to be giving me the desired output.

Below are the data.frames:

myDF1 <- structure(list(studyno = c("J1000/9", "J1000/9", "J1000/9", "J1000/9", 
"J1000/9", "J1000/9"), date = structure(c(17123, 17127, 17135, 
17144, 17148, 17155), class = "Date"), pf_mcl = c(NA_integer_, 
NA_integer_, NA_integer_, NA_integer_, NA_integer_, NA_integer_
), year = c(2016, 2016, 2016, 2016, 2016, 2016)), .Names = c("studyno", 
"date", "pf_mcl", "year"), row.names = c(NA, 6L), class = "data.frame")

myDF2 <- structure(list(studyno = c("J740/4", "J1000/9", "J895/7", "J931/6", 
"J609/1", "J941/3"), pf_mcl = c(0L, 0L, 0L, 0L, 0L, 0L)), .Names = c("studyno", 
"pf_mcl"), row.names = c(NA, 6L), class = "data.frame")

One solution I tried that seemed to work is shown below, however, I find that whatever values were in myDF1 before have been removed.

myDF1$pf_mcl <- myDF2$pf_mcl[match(myDF1$studyno, myDF2$studyno)]

Answer 1

# Merge myDF1 & myDF2 by the "studyno", keeping all the rows in myDF1
agg_df = merge(myDF1, myDF2, "studyno", all.x=TRUE)
# Populate pf_mcl in the merged dataframe by using pf_mcl in myDF2 if it is available. Otherwise, use pf_mcl from myDF1
# is missing in myDF1
agg_df$pf_mcl = ifelse(is.na(agg_df$pf_mcl.y), agg_df$pf_mcl.x, agg_df$pf_mcl.y)
myDF1 = agg_df[, names(myDF1)]