R: Replace multiple values in multiple columns of dataframes with NA

Question

I am trying to achieve something similar to this question but with multiple values that must be replaced by NA, and in large dataset.

df <- data.frame(nam         


        

Answer 1

Here's an approach:

# the values that should be replaced by NA
values <- c(3, 4)

# index of columns
col_idx <- grep("^var", names(df))
# [1] 3 4

# index of values (within these columns)
val_idx <- sapply(df[col_idx], "%in%", table = values)
#        var1  var2
#  [1,] FALSE  TRUE
#  [2,] FALSE  TRUE
#  [3,]  TRUE  TRUE
#  [4,]  TRUE  TRUE
#  [5,] FALSE  TRUE
#  [6,] FALSE  TRUE
#  [7,] FALSE FALSE
#  [8,] FALSE FALSE
#  [9,] FALSE FALSE

# replace with NA
is.na(df[col_idx]) <- val_idx

df
#   name foo var1 var2
# 1    a   1    1   NA
# 2    a   2    2   NA
# 3    a   3   NA   NA
# 4    b   4   NA   NA
# 5    b   5    5   NA
# 6    b   6    6   NA
# 7    c   7    7    5
# 8    c   8    8    5
# 9    c   9    9    5