[R] adding a factor column based on levels of another factor

[Karen Kotschy]

Hi R users

Does anyone out there have a better/quicker way of adding a factor column
to a data frame based on levels of another factor?

I have a (large) data frame consisting of records for individual plants,
each represented by a unique ID number. The species of each plant is
indicated in the column "species", which is a factor column with many
different levels (species). There are multiple records for each species,
and there is no pattern to the order in which the species names appear in
the data frame.

e.g.
   uniqueID species   elev   ht   diam
1  1        sp2       3.5    1.3  55
2  2        sp2       4.2    0.5  15
3  3        sp3       3.2    1.0  13
4  4        sp65      2.2    2.0  14
5  5        sp43      5.4    5.7  20
6  6        sp2       2.5    4.1  32
7  7        sp12      1.1    0.9  5
8  8        sp3       3.4    3.6  2

I would like to add a factor column to this data frame, indicating to
which group each individual belongs. All individuals of the same species
will belong to the same group.

Is there a quick way of saying "for all instances of species1, give the
value 5, for all instances of species2, give the value 4, etc" (where 5
and 4 are levels of a factor)?

The only way I can think of doing it is to split the data frame by
species, then add a column to each subset showing the group, then
re-join all the subsets. This seems clumsy and prone to errors. Anyone
know a better way?

I've looked at expand.grid and gl but they don't seem to do what I want.

Thanks!

Karen Kotschy
Centre for Water in the Environment
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg
South Africa