Problems recoding variables with strings

1
votes

Goal

I am attempting to create a categorical (e.g, string) variable in R using values from a different variable, and according to specific criteria.

Problem

This does not seem to actually recode the data. I am transforming the data, but I am not sure in which way.

Description of Data

I have a data frame structured at the country-month unit of analysis. One of the variables is governance, and is continuous. It ranges from 0.750 to 4.333.

Steps Taken

I am attempting to create a categorical variable in which I create labels for 4 different broad groups of governance.

Here is what I tried:

syndromes$syndrome_cat <- NA
syndromes$syndrome_cat[syndromes$governance <= 1.645] <- "Category 1"
syndromes$syndrome_cat[syndromes$governance >= 1.646 & syndromes$governance <= 2.541] <- "Category 2"
syndromes$syndrome_cat[syndromes$governance >= 2.542 & syndromes$governance <= 3.437] <- "Category 3"
syndromes$syndrome_cat[syndromes$governance >= 3.438] <- "Category 3"

Unfortunately, this does not result in listing the different values, but instead results in this:

summary(variable)
Length     Class       Mode 
14256      character   character

When I examine the data, I see this:

head(syndromes$governance)
[1] NA NA NA NA NA NA

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you in advance!

2
r
See help(cut). You can cut governance and create new labels, using the outcome for the new column. – Rich Scriven
we might need a sample of your data to help you understand where your code is failing.. recheck the types of each column once – joel.wilson
Thank you, @RichScriven! That worked perfectly. – Yasha

2 Answers

2
votes

Just use this (as @Rich Scriven also suggested), also you can change the default behavior of cut by including/excluding the left/right sides of the intervals:

syndromes$syndrome_cat <- cut(syndromes$governance, breaks=c(-Inf,1.645, 2.541, 3.437,Inf), 
                                                    labels=paste('Category', 1:4))
1
votes

With dplyr:

mydf %>% 
    mutate(group = case_when(.$governance < 1.646 ~ 'Cat1',
                       between(.$governance, 1.646, 2.541) ~ 'Cat2',
                       between(.$governance, 2.542, 3.437) ~ 'Cat3',
                       .$governance > 3.438 ~ 'Cat4'))