Uniting within an ifelse statement

I’m trying to write an ifelse statement (if statement is fine as well) with unite, such that if the number of characters in the FPLACE column were equal to four, it would create a new column called “PLACE_ID” uniting FIPS and FPLACE (in that order, no spaces) and (since all the other characters would be equal to five) to unite the remaining values in the FPLACE column with FIPS_ST and FPLACE and then putting these values also into “PLACE_ID” column.

For the past hour, I’ve been trying some form of this:

ifelse(nchar(dat$FPLACE, type = "chars")==4, dat%>%unite(PLACE_ID, FIPS, FPLACE, sep = "", remove = FALSE), dat%>%unite(PLACE_ID, FIPS_ST, FPLACE, sep = "", remove = TRUE))

and starting simpler:

nchar(dat$FPLACE, type = "chars")==4, 

which works, but then I try the code below and something goes wrong.

if(dat$FPLACE==nchar(4)){
  print(
dat%>%unite(PLACE_ID, FIPS, FPLACE, sep = "", remove = FALSE))
}

Ideally, I could just use piping, but even this doesn’t work:

dat%>%nchar(.$FPLACE, type = "chars")==4

And I think there is something both fundamental and important here that’s hidden in my continual confusion. Why will dat%>%filter(variable=="something") work, but dat%>%nchar(.$variable)==4 won’t? I've also never figured out when you have to use the .$ vs when you don't. What's the rhyme and reason?

Thanks much!!!

dput here:

Show in New WindowClear OutputExpand/Collapse Output
structure(list(X1 = c(1, 2, 3), FSTATE = c("(01) Alabama", "(01) Alabama", 
"(01) Alabama"), FCOUNTY = c(1, 1, 1), FPLACE = c(3220, 62328, 
62328), FIPS_ST = c("01", "01", "01"), FIPS_COUNTY = c("001", 
"001", "001"), FIPS = c("01001", "01001", "01001"), ORI9 = c("AL0040200", 
"AL0040100", "AL0040300"), ORI7 = c("AL00402", "AL00401", "-1"
), NAME = c("AUTAUGAVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT", "PRATTVILLE POLICE DEPARTMENT", 
"PRATTVILLE FIRE DEPT ARSON INVESTIGATION BRANCH")), class = c("spec_tbl_df", 
"tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame"), row.names = c(NA, -3L), spec = structure(list(
    cols = list(X1 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), FSTATE = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), FCOUNTY = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), FPLACE = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), FIPS_ST = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), FIPS_COUNTY = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), FIPS = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ORI9 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ORI7 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), NAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), UA = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), STATENAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), COUNTYNAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), UANAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), PARTOF = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), AGCYTYPE = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), SUBTYPE1 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), SUBTYPE2 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), GOVID = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), LG_NAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_NAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_STR1 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_STR2 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_CITY = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_STATE = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), ADDRESS_ZIP = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), REPORT_FLAG = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), CSLLEA08_ID = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), LEMAS_ID = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), U_STATENO = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), U_CNTY = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), U_POPGRP = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), U_TPOP = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), LG_POPULATION = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), CSLLEA_SUB = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), COMMENT = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), INTPTLAT = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), INTPTLONG = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), CONGDIST1 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), CONGDIST2_18 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), DISTNAME = structure(list(), class = c("collector_character", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_CSLLEA2008 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_UCR2010 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_UCR2011 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_UCR2012 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_NCIC2012 = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector")), SOURCE_VENDOR = structure(list(), class = c("collector_double", 
    "collector"))), default = structure(list(), class = c("collector_guess", 
    "collector")), skip = 1), class = "col_spec"))