I asked because I thought it'd solve an issue I had. I was actually being
quite rash in asking this question and for that, I apologize.

I wanted to know because I was attempting to create a heatmap where the NA
values would not be shown while all the outputs with actual numerical value
will be shown. I had assumed that setting the NA's to blanks would fix the
issue, but it hadn't. I refrained from immediately asking another question
so I that I can look further into this.

I hope that answers your question.

On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Ted Harding <ted.harding@wlandres.net>wrote:

> John Kane's reply sums it up! (Though you could use "",
> instead of " ", which would give you an "empty string"
> instead of the "space" character; but the resulting
> matrix would still consist entirely of "character"
> elements).
>
> However, the real reason I am following up is to ask
> why you want the blank instead of the NA.
>
> If it is just for printing out or display, then the
> fact that the matrix has been converted to character
> probably does not matter.
>
> But if it is for compatibility with some other
> computational software that (e.g.) expects missing
> values to be represented by a blank, or some "null"
> representation, then it may not be so straightforward.
>
> So, if that might be an issue, please describe for us
> how you intend to use the result.
>
> Ted.
>
> On 09-May-11 19:56:39, Dat Mai wrote:
> > Thank you kind sir!
> >
> > On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 3:25 PM, John Kane <jrkrideau@yahoo.ca> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> (mat <- matrix(c(1,2,3,NA),2))
> >> mat[is.na(mat)]   <- " "
> >> mat
> >>
> >> But if you have a numerical matrix it coverts the matrix to character.
> >>
> >> --- On Mon, 5/9/11, Dat Mai <dat.d.mai@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> > From: Dat Mai <dat.d.mai@gmail.com>
> >> > Subject: [R]  Setting NA to blank
> >> > To: r-help@r-project.org
> >> > Received: Monday, May 9, 2011, 2:46 PM
> >> > Hey All,
> >> >
> >> > I have a matrix m, and I wish to set all the NA values to
> >> > blank. How would I
> >> > do so?
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Best,
> >> > Dat Mai
> >> > PhD Rotation Student
> >> > Albert Einstein College of Medicine
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding@wlandres.net>
> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
> Date: 09-May-11                                       Time: 21:21:07
> ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
>



-- 
Best,
Dat Mai
PhD Rotation Student
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

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