[R] See the numeric codes of a factor

Duncan Murdoch murdoch.duncan at gmail.com
Fri Sep 19 13:32:56 CEST 2014


On 19/09/2014, 6:53 AM, Angel Rodriguez wrote:
> Dear Subscribers,
>  
> I want to label a numeric variable 0="Bad" /1="Good". I understand the only way is to transform it into a factor variable. 
>  
> Is there a way to check that the numeric values of the new factor variable are 0 and 1 and not 1 and 2?

If you apply as.numeric() to a factor, you won't get a zero value.
Internal factor values start at 1.

So I wouldn't rely on the internal storage to achieve whatever it is you
want to achieve.  Use explicit computation, e.g.

words <- ifelse(var == 0, "Bad", ifelse(var == 1, "Good", NA))
values <- ifelse(words == "Bad", 0, ifelse(words == "Good", 1, NA))

Duncan Murdoch



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