How to copy data from a column to another based on a condition in R?

Question

I have below data frame as shown below.

  Funct.Area Environment ServiceType Ticket.Nature SLA.Result..4P. IRIS.Priority Func_Environment
2        FUN         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium          FUN-DCF
3  AME - FIN         DCF         FUN            SR          Defect        Medium    AME - FIN-DCF
4  EMEA -FIN         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium    EMEA -FIN-DCF
5        APS         DCF         APS            SR          Defect        Medium          APS-DCF
6   EMEA -SC         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium     EMEA -SC-DCF
7        SEC         DCF         SEC            SR              OK           Low          SEC-DCF

I need to do a subset from the field Funct.Area in order to have first 3 or 4 chars and if they are "EMEA" or "AME", then replace the value from that field with the one on Environment .

I have looked into similar question in StackOverflow but I am not able to manage the copy part since I'm getting stuck with a factor issue.

Is someone able to guide me if there is any approach that should I try?

Thanks.

Edit #1: Per @akrun approach.

tickets$Funct.Area <- as.character(tickets$Funct.Area)
i1 <- with(tickets, grepl("^(EMEA|AME)", tickets$Funct.Area))
tickets$Funct.Area[i1] <- tickets$Func_Environment[i1]
head(tickets)
  Funct.Area Environment ServiceType Ticket.Nature SLA.Result..4P. IRIS.Priority Func_Environment
2        FUN         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium          FUN-DCF
3         13         DCF         FUN            SR          Defect        Medium    AME - FIN-DCF
4         65         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium    EMEA -FIN-DCF
5        APS         DCF         APS            SR          Defect        Medium          APS-DCF
6         66         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium     EMEA -SC-DCF
7        SEC         DCF         SEC            SR              OK           Low          SEC-DCF

Edit 2:

This is the solution that worked for me.

tickets$Funct.Area <- as.character(tickets$Funct.Area)
tickets$Environment <- as.character(tickets$Environment)
i1 <- with(tickets, grepl("^(EMEA|AME)", tickets$Funct.Area))
tickets$Funct.Area[i1] <- tickets$Func_Environment[i1]
tickets$Funct.Area[i1] <- as.character(tickets$Environment[i1])

Thank you very much @akrun.

Answer 1

We create a logical index ('i1') using grepl to check if the characters at the start ( ^ ) of the string is either 'EMEA' or ( | ) "AME". Using that, replace the elements of 'Funct.Area' with 'Funct_Environment'

i1 <- with(df1, grepl("^(EMEA|AME)", Funct.Area))
df1$Funct.Area[i1] <- df1$Func_Environment[i1] 
df1
#     Funct.Area Environment ServiceType Ticket.Nature SLA.Result..4P. IRIS.Priority Func_Environment
#2           FUN         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium          FUN-DCF
#3 AME - FIN-DCF         DCF         FUN            SR          Defect        Medium    AME - FIN-DCF
#4 EMEA -FIN-DCF         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium    EMEA -FIN-DCF
#5           APS         DCF         APS            SR          Defect        Medium         APS-DCF'
#6  EMEA -SC-DCF         DCF         FUN            SR              OK        Medium     EMEA -SC-DCF
#7           SEC         DCF         SEC            SR              OK           Low          SEC-DCF

data

df1 <- structure(list(Funct.Area = c("FUN", "AME - FIN", "EMEA -FIN", 
"APS", "EMEA -SC", "SEC"), Environment = c("DCF", "DCF", "DCF", 
"DCF", "DCF", "DCF"), ServiceType = c("FUN", "FUN", "FUN", "APS", 
"FUN", "SEC"), Ticket.Nature = c("SR", "SR", "SR", "SR", "SR", 
"SR"), SLA.Result..4P. = c("OK", "Defect", "OK", "Defect", "OK", 
"OK"), IRIS.Priority = c("Medium", "Medium", "Medium", "Medium", 
"Medium", "Low"), Func_Environment = c("FUN-DCF", "AME - FIN-DCF", 
 "EMEA -FIN-DCF", "APS-DCF'", "EMEA -SC-DCF", "SEC-DCF")), .Names = c("Funct.Area", 
 "Environment", "ServiceType", "Ticket.Nature", "SLA.Result..4P.", 
"IRIS.Priority", "Func_Environment"), class = "data.frame", 
 row.names = c("2", 
 "3", "4", "5", "6", "7"))