[R] conditional coding question

[Berend Hasselman]

On 08-11-2012, at 00:07, haps wrote:

> I have a big dataset. I want to create a new factor variable with certain
> conditions based on two existing numeric variables. 
> Existing variables: indinc (range: 0 to 16), groupinc (range -3 to 5)
> Conditional values that 'incorp' will take:
> If groupinc = 5, then ‘cons’;
> If groupinc is -3 : -2, AND indinc <  9, then  ‘ethnat’;
> If groupinc is -2 : -1, AND indinc > 8, then ‘civic’;
> If groupinc is 1 : 4, AND indinc > 8, then ‘libmul’;
> The rest of the values should be coded as NA.
> #here is my code after attaching the data (4408 is the number of
> observations):#
> incorp <-
>  for (i in 1:4408) {
>    if (groupinc[i] == 5) {
>      incorp[i] = 'cons'
>    } else if ((groupinc[i] == -3:-2) & (indinc[i] < 9)) {
>      incorp[i] = 'ethnat'
>    } else if ((groupinc[i] == 1:4) & (indinc[i] > 8)) {
>      incorp[i] = 'libmul'
>    } else if ((groupinc[i] == -2:-1) & (indinc[i] > 8)) {
>      incorp[i] = 'civic' 
>    } else = NA
>  }
> #error message#
> Error: unexpected '=' in:
> "      incorp[i] = 'civic' 
>    } else ="
> 

So what's the question?
The error message?
It's a syntax error.

else = NA is an invalid R construct.

Change it to 

else NA

Berend