sapply - apply a function to each cell in a column of a dataframe in R -

edit @user5249203 pointing out geocoding best done ggmaps' geocode call. watch out na's though.

i struggling apply family in r.

i using function takes in string , returns longitude , latitude

> ggeocode("philadelphia, pa") [1] 39.95258 -75.16522

i have simple dataframe has names of 52 states:

dput(state_lat_long) structure(   list(state = structure(     c(       32l, 28l, 43l, 5l, 23l, 34l,       30l, 13l, 14l, 38l, 22l, 25l, 15l, 20l, 24l, 40l, 46l, 21l, 9l,       18l, 48l, 10l, 7l, 4l, 3l, 31l, 35l, 37l, 49l, 44l, 12l, 6l,       17l, 36l, 11l, 39l, 42l, 8l, 47l, 33l, 16l, 1l, 29l, 27l, 26l,       19l, 41l, 50l, 2l, 45l     ), .label = c(       "alabama", "alaska", "arizona",       "arkansas", "california", "colorado", "connecticut", "delaware",       "florida", "georgia", "hawaii", "idaho", "illinois", "indiana",       "iowa", "kansas", "kentucky", "louisiana", "maine", "maryland",       "massachusetts", "michigan", "minnesota", "mississippi", "missouri",       "montana", "nebraska", "nevada", "new hampshire", "new jersey",       "new mexico", "new york", "north carolina", "north dakota", "ohio",       "oklahoma", "oregon", "pennsylvania", "rhode island", "south carolina",       "south dakota", "tennessee", "texas", "utah", "vermont", "virginia",       "washington", "west virginia", "wisconsin", "wyoming"     ), class = "factor"   )), .names = "state", row.names = c(na,-50l), class = "data.frame" ) 

to practice apply skills, want apply ggeocode each cell in column of state_lat_long dataframe.

couldn't simpler.

then problem this?

> view(apply(state_lat_long, function(x) ggeocode(x))) 

when run this, get:

error in view : argument "fun" missing, no default   

which don't understand, because fun not missing.

so, let's try sapply. it's supposed simple, right?

but wrong this?

view(sapply(state_lat_long$state, function(x) ggeocode(x))) 

when run this, 2 rows 50 columns, packed nas. can't make sense of it.

next, tried

view(apply(state_lat_long, 2, function(x) ggeocode(x)))   

and got

     state   40.71278  -74.00594   

again, makes no sense!

what doing wrong? thanks.

i realise question *apply, but, if after geocodes easier option use vectorised function, such ggmap::geocode

state_lat_long <- structure(     list(state = structure(     c(       32l, 28l, 43l, 5l, 23l, 34l,       30l, 13l, 14l, 38l, 22l, 25l, 15l, 20l, 24l, 40l, 46l, 21l, 9l,       18l, 48l, 10l, 7l, 4l, 3l, 31l, 35l, 37l, 49l, 44l, 12l, 6l,       17l, 36l, 11l, 39l, 42l, 8l, 47l, 33l, 16l, 1l, 29l, 27l, 26l,       19l, 41l, 50l, 2l, 45l     ), .label = c(       "alabama", "alaska", "arizona",       "arkansas", "california", "colorado", "connecticut", "delaware",       "florida", "georgia", "hawaii", "idaho", "illinois", "indiana",       "iowa", "kansas", "kentucky", "louisiana", "maine", "maryland",       "massachusetts", "michigan", "minnesota", "mississippi", "missouri",       "montana", "nebraska", "nevada", "new hampshire", "new jersey",       "new mexico", "new york", "north carolina", "north dakota", "ohio",       "oklahoma", "oregon", "pennsylvania", "rhode island", "south carolina",       "south dakota", "tennessee", "texas", "utah", "vermont", "virginia",       "washington", "west virginia", "wisconsin", "wyoming"     ), class = "factor"   )), .names = "state", row.names = c(na,-50l), class = "data.frame" )  library(ggmap)  ## make sure we're using correct geocode function call 'ggmap::geocode' ggmap::geocode(as.character(state_lat_long$state)) ... #           lon      lat # 1   -74.00594 40.71278 # 2  -116.41939 38.80261 # 3   -99.90181 31.96860 # 4  -119.41793 36.77826 # 5   -94.68590 46.72955 # 6  -101.00201 47.55149