Togaware DATA MINING
Desktop Survival Guide
by Graham Williams
Google

Factors



> ds <- data.frame(age=c(34, 56, 23, 72, 48), 
                   risk=c("high", "low", "high", "low", "high"))
> ds
  age risk
1  34 high
2  56  low
3  23 high
4  72  low
5  48 high
> levels(ds$risk)
[1] "high" "low"

By default levels within a factor are not ordered:

> ds$age[1] < ds$age[2]
[1] TRUE
> ds$risk[1] < ds$risk[2]
[1] NA
Warning message:
< not meaningful for factors in: Ops.factor(ds$risk[1], ds$risk[2])

We can order the levels using the ordered function:

> ds$risk <- ordered(ds$risk)
> levels(ds$risk)
[1] "high" "low" 
> ds$risk[1] < ds$risk[2]
[1] TRUE

Saying that high is less than low is probably not what we wanted. The ordering used is the same as what levels returns.

You can change the names of the levels by assigning to the levels call:

> levels(ds$risk) <- c("upper", "lower")
> ds
  age  risk
1  34 upper
2  56 lower
3  23 upper
4  72 lower
5  48 upper



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