cut_ages: Cut integer age vectors

In ageutils: Collection of Functions for Working with Age Intervals

Cut integer age vectors

Description

cut_ages() provides categorisation of ages based on specified breaks which represent the left-hand interval limits. The resulting intervals span from the minimum break through to a specified max_upper and will always be closed on the left and open on the right. Ages below the minimum break, or above max_upper will be returned as NA.

Usage

cut_ages(ages, breaks, max_upper = Inf)

Arguments

ages	⁠[numeric]⁠. Vector of age values. Double values are coerced to integer prior to categorisation / aggregation. Must not be NA.
breaks	⁠[integerish]⁠. 1 or more non-negative cut points in increasing (strictly) order. These correspond to the left hand side of the desired intervals (e.g. the closed side of [x, y). Double values are coerced to integer prior to categorisation.
max_upper	⁠[numeric]⁠ Represents the maximum upper bound for the resulting intervals. Double values are rounded up to the nearest (numeric) integer. Defaults to Inf.

Value

A data frame with an ordered factor column (interval), as well as columns corresponding to the explicit bounds (lower and upper). Internally both bound columns are stored as double but it can be taken as part of the function API that lower is coercible to integer without any coercion to NA_integer_. Similarly all values of upper apart from those corresponding to max_upper can be assumed coercible to integer (max_upper may or may not depending on the given argument).

Examples

cut_ages(ages = 0:9, breaks = c(0, 3, 5, 10))

cut_ages(ages = 0:9, breaks = c(0, 5))

# Note the following is comparable to a call to
# cut(ages, right = FALSE, breaks = c(breaks, Inf))
ages <- seq.int(from = 0, by = 10, length.out = 10)
breaks <- c(0, 1, 10, 30)
cut_ages(ages, breaks)

# values above max_upper treated as NA
cut_ages(ages = 0:10, breaks = c(0,5), max_upper = 7)

ageutils documentation built on Aug. 8, 2025, 6:06 p.m.