[R] PCA and categorical data

[Galanidis Alexandros]

Hi all,

I' m trying to figure out if it is appropriate to do a PCA having only categorical data (not ordinal). I have only find the following quote:

One method to find such relationships is to select appropriate variables and
to view the data using a method like Principle Components Analysis (PCA) [4].
This approach gives us a clear picture of the data using KL-plot of the PCA.
However, the method is not settled for the data including categorical data.
[http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA038807/personal/covEigGiniRep17.pdf]

but I'm still not sure if it WRONG to do so.

Any opinion or reference would be very helpful

thanks