Class Coercion
In ilabelled: Simple Handling of Labelled Data

knitr::opts_chunk$set(
  collapse = TRUE,
  comment = "#>"
)

library(ilabelled)

Class coercion

Objects of type i_labelled can be very easily converted into base R object classes. On the one hand, this is possible using the familiar as.* methods. On the other hand, there are specific functions in which value labels are taken into account: i_as_factor() and i_as_character

If R's own method as.* is used, the underlying data is converted accordingly. Value labels are not taken into account.

myData <- i_labelled(
  x = c(1, 2, 3, NA), 
  labels = c("A" = 1, "B" = 2), 
  label = "my Variable"
)
as.character(myData)
as.numeric(myData)
as.factor(myData)

However, ilabelled also offers two specific functions that take value labels into account during conversion.

myData <- i_labelled(
  x = c(1, 2, 3, NA, -9), 
  labels = c("A" = 1, "B" = 2, "X" = -9), 
  label = "my Variable",
  na_values = -9
)
i_as_factor(myData, missing_to_na = FALSE, keep_attributes = FALSE)
i_as_character(myData, missing_to_na = TRUE, keep_attributes = TRUE)