I have a following matrix and wish to define a variable based the variable A=matrix(0,5,5) A[1,]=c(30,20,100,120,90) A[2,]=c(40,30,20,50,100) A[3,]=c(50,50,40,30,30) A[4,]=c(30,20,40,50,50) A[5,]=c(30,50,NA,NA,100) > A [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [1,] 30 20 100 120 90 [2,] 40 30 20 50 100 [3,] 50 50 40 30 30 [4,] 30 20 40 50 50 [5,] 30 20 NA NA 100 I want to define two variables: X is the first column in each row that is equal to 20, for example, for the first row, I need X=2; 2nd row, X=3; 3rd row, X>5; 3th row, X=2, 5th row, X=NA; Y is then the first column in each row that is equal to 100 if before this a 20 has been reached, for example, for the first row, Y=3; 2nd row, Y=5; 3rd row, Y=NA, 4th row, Y>5; 5th row, Y=NA. the matrix may involve NA as well. How can I define these two variables quickly? (When X>5 or Y>5, we can arbitrarily assign a value 6, and this is different from being NA) [[alternative HTML version deleted]]