[R] svm and scaling input

[Arne.Muller@sanofi-aventis.com]

Dear All,

I've a question about scaling the input variables for an analysis with svm (package e1071). Most of my variables are factors with 4 to 6 levels but there are also some numeric variables.

I'm not familiar with the math behind svms, so my assumtions maybe completely wrong ... or obvious. Will the svm automatically expand the factors into a binary matrix? If I add numeric variables outside the range of 0 to 1 do I have to scale them to have 0 to 1 range?

thanks a lot for help,

	+kind regards,

	Arne