[R] what is returned if a match is not found using grep

[Rnewbie]

dear all,

I tried to use grep to match IDs in two dataframes

grep(DF1$ID[i], DF2$ID)

I wanted to use condition in a loop, but I have the problem to define what
is in return if a match is not found. I used mode() and class() to compare
between the attributes when a match is found and not found, but the mode and
class are the same in both cases, numeric and integer, respectively.

When a match is not found, grep returns "integer(0)". Is.numeric() and
Is.integer() of the return gave TRUE but arithmetic calculation is not
possible.

For example,
If a match is not found for i=12,

grep(DF1$ID[12], DF2$ID) returns "integer(0)" and 

grep(DF1$ID[12], DF2$ID)+10 returns "numeric(0)"

I will appreciate any suggestions. Thanks in advance.


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