[R] understanding the no-label concept

[Ista Zahn]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:19 PM,  <moonkid at posteo.org> wrote:
>> aa <- 1:5
>> names(aa) <- c("Eins", "Zwei", "Drei", "Vier", "Fünf")
>> aa
> Eins Zwei Drei Vier Fünf
>    1    2    3    4    5
>> table(aa)
> 1 2 3 4 5
> 1 1 1 1 1
>
> You see? It didn't work.

perhaps you want

table(names(aa))

Or maybe just

aa <- - c("Eins", "Zwei", "Drei", "Vier", "Fünf")
table(aa)

>
>> aa <- c(aa, 1, 2)
>> aa
> Eins Zwei Drei Vier Fünf
>    1    2    3    4    5    1    2

This does get more complicated if you want to add things by number.
But why not just


aa <- - c("Eins", "Zwei", "Drei", "Vier", "Fünf")
aa <- c(aa, "Eins", "Zwei")
table(aa)

?

>
> This is no solution for my case.
>
> But...
>
>> bb <- matrix(1:12, 3, 4, dimnames=list(letters[1:3], LETTERS[1:4]))

Not really sure what this is meant to demonstrate.

More generally there is no one-to-one mapping between the stata
concept of variable and value labels to concepts in R. First, there is
no equivalent of Stata variable labels. There is ?comment but it
doesn't survive subsetting. The role that value labels play in Stata
are covered variously in R by 1) just using character strings to store
the information that you would typically put in a stata value label,
b) naming your variable, or c) using factors. Personally I usually
find option 1) more convenient.

Best,
Ista

>
> Nice. But look dam complex for a simple task. I see I have to change a
> lot of the concepts in my mind and my workflows.
>
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