r - mutate function is not updating

Question

I have a tbl_df with several columns. I am running a simple mutate on it to update a column, but the column is not being updated.

mutate(fltr, cat = "xxxxx")

cat is a column that is either empty or NA. Filter is a tbl_df. What could be causing this? I have tried to put text in the cat column so that it is not empty or NA in case that was causing the problem. That still did not work.

Answer 1

mutate doesn't change the tbl_df in place, it just returns the new, changed tbl_df. You need to save the results:

fltr <- mutate(fltr, cat = "xxxxx")