Logical operators (AND, OR) with NA, TRUE and FALSE
To quote from ?Logic
:
NA is a valid logical object. Where a component of x or y is NA, the result will be NA if the outcome is ambiguous. In other words NA & TRUE evaluates to NA, but NA & FALSE evaluates to FALSE. See the examples below.
The key there is the word "ambiguous". NA
represents something that is "unknown". So NA & TRUE
could be either true or false, but we don't know. Whereas NA & FALSE
will be false no matter what the missing value is.
It's explained in help("|")
:
NA
is a valid logical object. Where a component ofx
ory
isNA
, the result will beNA
if the outcome is ambiguous. In other wordsNA & TRUE
evaluates toNA
, butNA & FALSE
evaluates toFALSE
. See the examples below.
From the examples in help("|")
:
x <- c(NA, FALSE, TRUE)
names(x) <- as.character(x)
outer(x, x, "&") ## AND table
# <NA> FALSE TRUE
# <NA> NA FALSE NA
# FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE
# TRUE NA FALSE TRUE
outer(x, x, "|") ## OR table
# <NA> FALSE TRUE
# <NA> NA NA TRUE
# FALSE NA FALSE TRUE
# TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE