R help - Jan 2016 - Equality of factor levels problem

Hi to all useRs on the list.

I want to know if there is a function in R which evaluates if observations of
two factors (similar but with unequal levels) in a data frame are equal at row
level.

Example of dataset:

var1 <- c(1, 2, 3, 2, 1)
var2 <- c(1, 3, 3, 4, 2)
dat <- data.frame(var1, var2)
dat$var1 <- factor(dat$var1, labels = c("low", "medium",
"high"))
dat$var2 <- factor(dat$var2, labels = c("low", "medium",
"high", "very high"))

What I want as a result is a logical vector that says if observation [i, 1] is
equal to observation [i, 2].

Something like...

var1[1] == var2[1]  # TRUE
var1[2] == var2[2]  # FALSE
var1[3] == var2[3]  # TRUE
var1[4] == var2[4]  # FALSE
var1[4] == var2[4]  # FALSE

I've tried equal signs (==), commands such as "identical" and
"all.equal" in "for loops" and I can't make it work for
factors.

It seems very simple but I just don't find the way to do it.

Regards,

Mart?n 

 		 	   		  
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You want to compare the values of the levels, I think?

What about:
> as.character(dat$var1) == as.character(dat$var2)
[1]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE

Sarah


On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Mart?n Ca??n <martincmd at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi to all useRs on the list.
>
> I want to know if there is a function in R which evaluates if observations
of two factors (similar but with unequal levels) in a data frame are equal at
row level.
>
> Example of dataset:
>
> var1 <- c(1, 2, 3, 2, 1)
> var2 <- c(1, 3, 3, 4, 2)
> dat <- data.frame(var1, var2)
> dat$var1 <- factor(dat$var1, labels = c("low",
"medium", "high"))
> dat$var2 <- factor(dat$var2, labels = c("low",
"medium", "high", "very high"))
>
> What I want as a result is a logical vector that says if observation [i, 1]
is equal to observation [i, 2].
>
> Something like...
>
> var1[1] == var2[1]  # TRUE
> var1[2] == var2[2]  # FALSE
> var1[3] == var2[3]  # TRUE
> var1[4] == var2[4]  # FALSE
> var1[4] == var2[4]  # FALSE
>
> I've tried equal signs (==), commands such as "identical" and
"all.equal" in "for loops" and I can't make it work for
factors.
>
> It seems very simple but I just don't find the way to do it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mart?n
>
-- 
Sarah Goslee
http://www.numberwright.com

Thank you, Sarah.

This works just fine. 

So simple. 

I didn't know I had to change the factor to character before making the
comparison.

Regards,

Mart?n


 		 	   		  
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