paste5.R

# paste5.R
# from here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13673894/suppress-nas-in-paste
# May 2017

paste5 <- function(..., sep = " ", collapse = NULL, na.rm = T) {
  if (na.rm == F)
    paste(..., sep = sep, collapse = collapse)
  else
    if (na.rm == T) {
      paste.na <- function(x, sep) {
        x <- gsub("^\\s+|\\s+$", "", x)
        ret <- paste(na.omit(x), collapse = sep)
        is.na(ret) <- ret == ""
        return(ret)
      }
      df <- data.frame(..., stringsAsFactors = F)
      ret <- apply(df, 1, FUN = function(x) paste.na(x, sep))
      
      if (is.null(collapse))
        ret
      else {
        paste.na(ret, sep = collapse)
      }
    }
}