Be aware that the third parameter (value) in the examples given above: the value is a constant (e.g. 'Z' or c(20,30)).
Defining the third parameter using values from the data frame itself can lead to confusion.
E.g. with a simple data frame such as this (using dplyr::data_frame):
tmp <- data_frame(a=1:10, b=sample(LETTERS[24:26], 10, replace=T))
This will create somthing like this:
a b
(int) (chr)
1 1 X
2 2 Y
3 3 Y
4 4 X
5 5 Z
..etc
Now suppose you want wanted to do, was to multiply the values in column 'a' by 2, but only where column 'b' is "X". My immediate thought would be something like this:
with(tmp, replace(a, b=="X", a*2))
That will not provide the desired outcome, however. The a*2 will defined as a fixed vector rather than a reference to the 'a' column. The vector 'a*2' will thus be
[1] 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
at the start of the 'replace' operation. Thus, the first row where 'b' equals "X", the value in 'a' will be placed by 2. The second time, it will be replaced by 4, etc ... it will not be replaced by two-times-the-value-of-a in that particular row.