[R] str_replace with NA does not match stringr behavior

@lucasmation

q <- data.table(x=c('','1','2'))
q %>% write_dataset('q')

#in R

q %>% mutate(x2=x %>% str_replace('^
s*$',NA_character_))

   x   x2
1:   <NA>
2: 1    1
3: 2    2

#in arrow

q2 <- 'q' %>% open_dataset %>% mutate(x2=x %>% str_replace('^
s*$',NA_character_)) %>% collect

q2

   x x2
1:     
2: 1  1
3: 2  2

Reporter: Lucas Mation / @lucasmation

Related issues:

[R][C++] Different behaviour of R's base::gsub() binding aka libarrow's replace_string_regex kernel since 10.0.0 (relates to)

_{Note: This issue was originally created as ARROW-18250. Please see the migration documentation for further details.}

@thisisnic

Nicola Crane / @thisisnic:
Thanks for reporting this @lucasmation! Internally this function maps to the same Acero compute function as is mapped to base::gsub() so the cause here is likely to be the same as ARROW-18202.

@nealrichardson

Neal Richardson / @nealrichardson:
ARROW-18202 is masking another issue with substring replacement with NA (which IMO doesn't really make sense even though stringr supports it; see also https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-18244?focusedCommentId=17628945&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#comment-17628945)

> data.frame(strs = c("one", "two", "three", "four")) |> mutate(str_replace(strs, "o", NA_character_)) |> collect()
   strs str_replace(strs, "o", NA_character_)
1   one                                  <NA>
2   two                                  <NA>
3 three                                 three
4  four                                  <NA>

> arrow_table(strs = c("one", "two", "three", "four")) |> mutate(str_replace(strs, "o", NA_character_)) |> collect()
# A tibble: 4 × 2
  strs  `str_replace(strs, "o", NA_character_)`
  <chr> <chr>                                  
1 one   NAne                                   
2 two   twNA                                   
3 three three                                  
4 four  fNAur

Looks like if replacement is NA we should map to ifelse(grepl(pattern, x), NA, x) or something along those lines.

Hello maintainers of {arrow}! 👋

Big fan of package, I use it regularly for some of my larger datasets.

tl;dr I noticed that, NAs are treated as character strings and not as true missing values in parquets that were created from open_dataset and becomes a problem when trying to subset by NA. This issue does not arise when I read_csv then write_parquet.

My reprex below, please let me know if you would like more info! Thank you!!

library(arrow)
#> 
#> Attaching package: 'arrow'
#> The following object is masked from 'package:utils':
#> 
#>     timestamp
library(here)
#> here() starts at /private/var/folders/fk/9s3srn850qj90zp4t67zc0fm0000gq/T/RtmpHI8rBb/reprex-c5b23ec2440-awake-topi
library(tidyverse)

# Setting file paths 
proj_dir <- ("~/Dropbox/1 - ALA/Projects/data_cleaning_workflows/")

# Open csv as a dataset
plants <- open_dataset(here(proj_dir, "ignore/Curated_Plant_and_Invertebrate_Data_for_Bushfire_Modelling/vascularplant.data.csv"), format = "csv")

# Saving the Myrtles as a parquet
plants %>%
  filter(family == "Myrtaceae") %>%
  select(record_id:longitude_used) %>%
  rename(latitude = latitude_used,
         longitude = longitude_used) %>%
  write_parquet(sink = here(proj_dir, "data/dap/myrtles.parquet"))

# Read parquet
myrtles <- read_parquet(here(proj_dir, "data/dap/myrtles.parquet"))

# Check for NA character in genus
myrtles %>% 
  filter(is.na(genus))
#> # A tibble: 0 × 13
#> # … with 13 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude <dbl>, longitude <dbl>

myrtles %>% 
  filter(genus == NA)
#> # A tibble: 0 × 13
#> # … with 13 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude <dbl>, longitude <dbl>

# Filter by character
myrtles %>% 
  filter(genus == "NA")
#> # A tibble: 55 × 13
#>    record_id     scien…¹ verna…² kingdom phylum class order family genus species
#>    <chr>         <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr> <chr> <chr>  <chr> <chr>  
#>  1 d6e812d2-72b… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  2 edf848f3-e84… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  3 e309b35f-523… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  4 94f9e331-d88… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  5 fb6345c6-350… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  6 84901a11-7a7… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  7 8cd35ed1-880… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  8 f9f2583b-fb7… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#>  9 e1761068-8ca… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#> 10 e9ff1c43-8ad… Kunzea… NA      Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… NA    Kunzea…
#> # … with 45 more rows, 3 more variables: subspecies <chr>, latitude <dbl>,
#> #   longitude <dbl>, and abbreviated variable names ¹scientific_name,
#> #   ²vernacular_name

# Saving myrtles as csv
plants %>%
  filter(family == "Myrtaceae") %>%
  select(record_id:longitude_used) %>%
  rename(latitude = latitude_used,
         longitude = longitude_used) %>% 
  write_csv_arrow(here(proj_dir,"data/dap/myrtles.csv"))

# Read in csv
myrtles_csv <- read_csv(here(proj_dir,"data/dap/myrtles.csv"))
#> Rows: 8376 Columns: 13
#> ── Column specification ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#> Delimiter: ","
#> chr (11): record_id, scientific_name, vernacular_name, kingdom, phylum, clas...
#> dbl  (2): latitude, longitude
#> 
#> ℹ Use `spec()` to retrieve the full column specification for this data.
#> ℹ Specify the column types or set `show_col_types = FALSE` to quiet this message.

# Check for NA character in genus
myrtles_csv %>% 
  filter(is.na(genus))
#> # A tibble: 55 × 13
#>    record_id     scien…¹ verna…² kingdom phylum class order family genus species
#>    <chr>         <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr> <chr> <chr>  <chr> <chr>  
#>  1 d6e812d2-72b… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  2 edf848f3-e84… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  3 e309b35f-523… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  4 94f9e331-d88… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  5 fb6345c6-350… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  6 84901a11-7a7… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  7 8cd35ed1-880… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  8 f9f2583b-fb7… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#>  9 e1761068-8ca… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#> 10 e9ff1c43-8ad… Kunzea… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Myrt… Myrta… <NA>  Kunzea…
#> # … with 45 more rows, 3 more variables: subspecies <chr>, latitude <dbl>,
#> #   longitude <dbl>, and abbreviated variable names ¹scientific_name,
#> #   ²vernacular_name

myrtles_csv %>% 
  filter(genus == NA)
#> # A tibble: 0 × 13
#> # … with 13 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude <dbl>, longitude <dbl>

# Filter by character
myrtles_csv %>% 
  filter(genus == "NA")
#> # A tibble: 0 × 13
#> # … with 13 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude <dbl>, longitude <dbl>

# Original plant dataset
## As parquet
plants_parquet <- read_parquet(here(proj_dir, "ignore/Curated_Plant_and_Invertebrate_Data_for_Bushfire_Modelling/vascularplant.data.parquet"))

# Check for NA character in genus
plants_parquet %>% 
  filter(is.na(genus))
#> # A tibble: 1,509 × 34
#>    record_id     scien…¹ verna…² kingdom phylum class order family genus species
#>    <chr>         <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr> <chr> <chr>  <chr> <chr>  
#>  1 a1ee0b88-6a7… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  2 c86a3efe-79a… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  3 5e230845-24d… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  4 f031cfc7-794… Crypto… <NA>    Plantae Trach… <NA>  <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Crypto…
#>  5 f2504b7c-bf7… Thelym… Heathl… Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Thelym…
#>  6 b939d99f-d79… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  7 e49a1a79-e70… Prasop… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Prasop…
#>  8 b409c0f6-b09… Crypto… <NA>    Plantae Trach… <NA>  <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Crypto…
#>  9 f9a1d50d-dcd… Parapr… Forest… Plantae Trach… Magn… <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Parapr…
#> 10 f418c4ba-c63… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#> # … with 1,499 more rows, 24 more variables: subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>,
#> #   longitude_original <dbl>, coordinate_uncertainty_in_metres <dbl>,
#> #   state_parsed <chr>, ibra_7_regions <chr>, collector <chr>, …

plants_parquet %>% 
  filter(genus == NA)
#> # A tibble: 0 × 34
#> # … with 34 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>, …

# Filter by character
plants_parquet %>% 
  filter(genus == "NA")
#> # A tibble: 0 × 34
#> # … with 34 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>, …

## As csv
plants <- read_csv(here(proj_dir, "ignore/Curated_Plant_and_Invertebrate_Data_for_Bushfire_Modelling/vascularplant.data.csv"))
#> Rows: 41572 Columns: 34
#> ── Column specification ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#> Delimiter: ","
#> chr (27): record_id, scientific_name, vernacular_name, kingdom, phylum, clas...
#> dbl  (5): latitude_used, longitude_used, latitude_original, longitude_origin...
#> lgl  (2): taxonomic_quality, location_quality
#> 
#> ℹ Use `spec()` to retrieve the full column specification for this data.
#> ℹ Specify the column types or set `show_col_types = FALSE` to quiet this message.

# Check for NA character in genus
plants %>% 
  filter(is.na(genus))
#> # A tibble: 1,509 × 34
#>    record_id     scien…¹ verna…² kingdom phylum class order family genus species
#>    <chr>         <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>  <chr> <chr> <chr>  <chr> <chr>  
#>  1 a1ee0b88-6a7… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  2 c86a3efe-79a… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  3 5e230845-24d… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  4 f031cfc7-794… Crypto… <NA>    Plantae Trach… <NA>  <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Crypto…
#>  5 f2504b7c-bf7… Thelym… Heathl… Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Thelym…
#>  6 b939d99f-d79… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#>  7 e49a1a79-e70… Prasop… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Prasop…
#>  8 b409c0f6-b09… Crypto… <NA>    Plantae Trach… <NA>  <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Crypto…
#>  9 f9a1d50d-dcd… Parapr… Forest… Plantae Trach… Magn… <NA>  Orchi… <NA>  Parapr…
#> 10 f418c4ba-c63… Diplod… <NA>    Plantae Trach… Magn… Aspa… Orchi… <NA>  Diplod…
#> # … with 1,499 more rows, 24 more variables: subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>,
#> #   longitude_original <dbl>, coordinate_uncertainty_in_metres <dbl>,
#> #   state_parsed <chr>, ibra_7_regions <chr>, collector <chr>, …

plants %>% 
  filter(genus == NA)
#> # A tibble: 0 × 34
#> # … with 34 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>, …

# Filter by character
plants %>% 
  filter(genus == "NA")
#> # A tibble: 0 × 34
#> # … with 34 variables: record_id <chr>, scientific_name <chr>,
#> #   vernacular_name <chr>, kingdom <chr>, phylum <chr>, class <chr>,
#> #   order <chr>, family <chr>, genus <chr>, species <chr>, subspecies <chr>,
#> #   latitude_used <dbl>, longitude_used <dbl>, catalogue_number <chr>,
#> #   taxon_concept_guid <chr>, scientific_name_original <chr>,
#> #   data_resource_id <chr>, data_resource_name <chr>, institution_code <chr>,
#> #   licence <chr>, locality <chr>, latitude_original <dbl>, …

sessionInfo() 
#> R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23)
#> Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20 (64-bit)
#> Running under: macOS Monterey 12.6.3
#> 
#> Matrix products: default
#> BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.2-arm64/Resources/lib/libRblas.0.dylib
#> LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.2-arm64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib
#> 
#> locale:
#> [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8
#> 
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#> 
#> other attached packages:
#>  [1] lubridate_1.9.2 forcats_1.0.0   stringr_1.5.0   dplyr_1.1.0    
#>  [5] purrr_1.0.1     readr_2.1.4     tidyr_1.3.0     tibble_3.1.8   
#>  [9] ggplot2_3.4.1   tidyverse_2.0.0 here_1.0.1      arrow_11.0.0.2 
#> 
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] styler_1.9.1      tidyselect_1.2.0  xfun_0.37         colorspace_2.1-0 
#>  [5] vctrs_0.5.2       generics_0.1.3    htmltools_0.5.4   yaml_2.3.7       
#>  [9] utf8_1.2.3        rlang_1.0.6       R.oo_1.25.0       pillar_1.8.1     
#> [13] glue_1.6.2        withr_2.5.0       R.utils_2.12.2    bit64_4.0.5      
#> [17] R.cache_0.16.0    lifecycle_1.0.3   munsell_0.5.0     gtable_0.3.1     
#> [21] R.methodsS3_1.8.2 evaluate_0.20     knitr_1.42        tzdb_0.3.0       
#> [25] fastmap_1.1.1     parallel_4.2.1    fansi_1.0.4       scales_1.2.1     
#> [29] vroom_1.6.1       fs_1.6.1          bit_4.0.5         hms_1.1.2        
#> [33] digest_0.6.31     stringi_1.7.12    grid_4.2.1        rprojroot_2.0.3  
#> [37] cli_3.6.0         tools_4.2.1       magrittr_2.0.3    crayon_1.5.2     
#> [41] pkgconfig_2.0.3   ellipsis_0.3.2    reprex_2.0.2      timechange_0.2.0 
#> [45] assertthat_0.2.1  rmarkdown_2.20    rstudioapi_0.14   R6_2.5.1         
#> [49] compiler_4.2.1

^{Created on 2023-03-09 with reprex v2.0.2}

@fontikar

Hi @fontikar, since your problem seems to be unrelated to str_replace, could you create a new issue and report it there?
Also, since we do not have access to the files on your local computer that you refer to in the reprex, it would be easier to understand the issue if you could attach a file with minimal data to the issue.

@eitsupi

Hi @eitsupi sounds good! I posted here so as to not bombard the maintainers to even more issues that may be related but absolutely happy to repost and with some made up data too!

Thanks for the quick reply and will be in touch!

@thisisnic

Hi @thisisnic - I'd like to champion this one.

Plan, following Neal's earlier comment: special-case a missing replacement in the R bindings rather than calling the replace kernel. When replacement is NA_character_, translate str_replace(x, pattern, NA) / str_replace_all(x, pattern, NA) to roughly:

if_else(str_detect(x, pattern), NA_character_, x)

so the whole string becomes NA when the pattern matches, matching stringr/base R (fixed() and regex patterns both).

Changes would land in r/R/dplyr-funcs-string.R with tests in r/tests/testthat/test-dplyr-funcs-string.R covering regex + fixed patterns, no match, and already-NA input. Will open a PR as GH-33432: [R] Match stringr behavior for str_replace with NA replacement shortly. Let me know if you'd prefer the fix at the C++ kernel level instead.

apacheGH-33432: [R] Match base/stringr semantics for str_replace() wi…

GH-33432: [R] Match base/stringr semantics for str_replace() with NA …

Issue resolved by pull request 51197
#51197

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[R] str_replace with NA does not match stringr behavior #33432

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asfimport commented on Nov 7, 2022

asfimport commented on Nov 7, 2022

fontikar commented on Mar 9, 2023

eitsupi commented on Mar 9, 2023

fontikar commented on Mar 12, 2023

Gosling-dude commented on Sep 7, 2026

thisisnic commented on Sep 12, 2026

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