[R] categorisation of continuous variables in R

[David Winsemius]

On Nov 23, 2009, at 8:14 AM, joris meys wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> I'm looking for a function comparable to switch, to categorize a
> continuous variable in a few levels.

?cut


> Off course that can be done with
> a series of ifelse statements, but that looks rather clumsy. I looked
> at switch, but couldn't figure out how to use it for this. I guess
> that's not possible, as it only works with characters or integers, not
> with intervals.
>
> Basically, I'm looking for a clean way to do :
> test <- runif(10,1,100)

 > test <- runif(10,1,100)
 > testcut <- cut(test, breaks=c(-Inf, 10, 50, 90, 100))
 > table(testcut)
testcut
(-Inf,10]   (10,50]   (50,90]  (90,100]
         1         4         5         0


>
> testFunc <-function(x){
> x <-  ifelse(test<10,"lowest",
>        ifelse(10<=test & test <50,"low",
>          ifelse(50<=test & test <90,"high",
>            ifelse(90<=test & test<100,"highest",NA)
>          )
>        )
>      )
> return(as.factor(x))
> }
>
> testFunc(test)
>
> Thank you in advance


-- 
David Winsemius, MD
Heritage Laboratories
West Hartford, CT