[R-sig-Geo] merge vector into a SpatialPolygonsDataFrame

[Tom Boonen]

Hi,

I am a newbie to the spatial stats (but know R). I would like to plot
a map where the colors for the various polygons are given by the value
of a vector.

# So I do my vector
# vector with 437 datapoints for 437 polygons
x <- 1:437

I# Then I read in my shapefile which works fine:
myshp   <- readShapePoly("cd99_109.shp")

> summary(myshp)
Object of class SpatialPolygonsDataFrame
Coordinates:
          min       max
r1 -179.14734 179.77847
r2   17.88481  71.35256
Is projected: NA
proj4string : [NA]
Data attributes:
     STATE           CD      LSAD          NAME        GEOCODE
                               LSAD_TRANS
 06     : 53   01     : 43   C1:  7   1      : 43   0101   :  1
Congressional District                   :428
 48     : 32   02     : 43   C2:428   2      : 43   0102   :  1
Congressional District (at Large)        :  7
 36     : 29   03     : 38   C3:  1   3      : 38   0103   :  1
Delegate District (at Large)             :  1
 12     : 25   04     : 33   C4:  1   4      : 33   0104   :  1
Resident Commissioner District (at Large):  1
 17     : 19   05     : 30            5      : 30   0105   :  1
 42     : 19   06     : 26            6      : 26   0106   :  1
 (Other):260   (Other):224            (Other):224   (Other):431

Now I would like to plot all 437 polygons, with the colors of the
polygons determined by the values of my x vector.

# this works fine
spplot(myshp, zcol = c("GEOCODE") ) plots the map niceley

# but this does not
spplot(myshp, zcol = x )

because x is not part of myshp. How can I merge the x data into the
SpatialPolygonsDataFrame?

Alternatively, I could replace the names of the GEOCODES, but:

myshp$GEOCODE[1] <- x[1] also does not work.

Thanks for your help.

Tom