Problem with ifelse() or dplyr::if_else() for dates

Question

I'd like to convert in vector mydates the NA in actual date (Sys.Date()) and if the values is a date then do not change anything, but I don't have success using ifelse or if_else of dplyr package. In my example:

# Package
library(dplyr)

# My vector
mydates<-c(NA,NA,NA,"2019-03-14","2020-05-01",NA,NA)

# Using ifelse
mydatescorr1<-ifelse(is.na(mydates)==TRUE,Sys.Date(),mydates)
mydatescorr1

[1] "18771"      "18771"      "18771"      "2019-03-14" "2020-05-01" "18771"      "18771" 

#Using if_else
mydatescorr2<-if_else(is.na(mydates)==TRUE,Sys.Date(),mydates)
mydatescorr2 

Erro: `false` must be a `Date` object, not a character vector.

Please, any help to fix it?

Ronak Shah · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-25 03:00:21Z

2

mydates is a character vector (class(mydates)), so when you return mydates as it is from the else part you are returning character object and not date. You can use -

dplyr::if_else(is.na(mydates), Sys.Date(), as.Date(mydates))

Or without if_else -

mydates <- as.Date(mydates)
mydates[is.na(mydates)] <- Sys.Date()

answered May 25, 2021 at 3:00

Ronak Shah

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Ben Bolker · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-25 03:03:34Z

2

How about

tidyr::replace_na(as.Date(mydates), Sys.Date())

? (You still have to convert mydates to a Date type first.) If you wanted you could pipe it:

mydates %>% as.Date() %>% replace_na(Sys.Date())

answered May 25, 2021 at 3:03

Ben Bolker

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