R help - Jun 2009 - Data Clean of Character variables

I am new to R, and I need to do some simple data cleaning.
In the example below I have 164 rows of data with a missing value. I want to
convert these missing to unknown while keeping the other values as is.

summary(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)
             no unknown     yes 
    164     914     163     178 

When I did the following code: 
 ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown<-ifelse(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown=='',"unknown",ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)
I get the following:
summary(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)
   Length     Class      Mode 
     1419 character character 

How do I get results as in my first statement,but with the missing values
converted to "unknown"?
 


Chris Anderson
707.315.8486
www.sassydeals4u.com
____________________________________________________________
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	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Chris Anderson wrote:
> I am new to R, and I need to do some simple data cleaning.
> In the example below I have 164 rows of data with a missing value. I want
to convert these missing to unknown while keeping the other values as is.
> 
> summary(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)
>              no unknown     yes 
>     164     914     163     178 
> 
> When I did the following code: 
> 
ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown<-ifelse(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown=='',"unknown",ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)

If it is already a factor you can say:

ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown[ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown==""] <-
"unknown"

You probably thought about the point to code something as "unknown" 
rather than NA...

Uwe Ligges




> I get the following:
> summary(ABIClinical$HasSkinBreakdown)
>    Length     Class      Mode 
>      1419 character character 
> 
> How do I get results as in my first statement,but with the missing values
converted to "unknown"?
>  
> 
> 
> Chris Anderson
> 707.315.8486
> www.sassydeals4u.com
> ____________________________________________________________
> Click now to find great remedies for hangovers!
>
http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2241/fc/BLSrjpYX6cOwzVRsN4wgBL2BcrUkmhqhwnuhi3jp8A1D4w4rJCnhkDzzV9u/
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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