generateFactorRenamer: Generate a factor renamer

In rjbgoudie/utils.rjbg: Miscellaneous utility functions

Description

Creates a template from which a specification of the renaming of the levels of factor variables in a data.frame can be.

Usage

  generateFactorRenamer(x, newlines = "level", sort = F)

Arguments

x	a data frame
newlines	A character variable. Either "variable" or "level". In the former case, each variable is one a separate line in the result. In the latter case, newlines are additionally placed after each level.
sort	A logical indicating whether the levels should be sorted, according to their numeric order

Details

Suppose we have a data frame x, composed of a number of factor variables (in columns). These factor variables are poorly named. For example, they may just be named by by integers. We would like to rename them so that their names are more helpful and intuitive.

To do this in a clear and repeatable manner, we will create an R list. Each component of the list is given the name of a column of the data.frame x. Each of these components is a character vector, each component of which refers to a level of the corresponding factor variable in x. Each of these component of the vector is a character, taking the default value of the current name of the factor level.

This function output such a list. The list can then be modified to specify the new level names, and the changes made using function changeLevels.

Value

The R code to generate the list is output to the terminal.

Examples

dat <- esoph[, 1:3]
generateFactorRenamer(dat)

# we can then change this into the following
levelChanges <- list(
agegp = c(
  "25-34" = "Young",
  "35-44" = "Young",
  "45-54" = "Middle-aged",
  "55-64" = "Middle-aged",
  "65-74" = "Old",
  "75+" = "Old"),
alcgp = c(
  "0-39g/day" = "0-39g/day",
  "40-79" = "40-79",
  "80-119" = "80-119",
  "120+" = "120+"),
tobgp = c(
  "0-9g/day" = "Light",
  "10-19" = "Medium",
  "20-29" = "Heavy",
  "30+" = "Heavy")
)
changeLevels(dat, levelChanges)
# this return the new data frame

rjbgoudie/utils.rjbg documentation built on May 27, 2019, 9:13 a.m.