R help - Jan 2010 - Recoding Variables in R

VAR 980490 

Some people have suggested placing new limits on foreign

imports in order to protect American jobs. Others say

that such limits would raise consumer prices and hurt

American exports.

Do you FAVOR or OPPOSE placing new limits on imports, or

haven't you thought much about this?

1. Favor

5. Oppose

8. DK

9. NA; RF

0. Haven't thought much about this

 

 

I am trying to recode the data for the following public opinion question from
the ANES. I would like to throw out 8 and 9. Furthermore, I would like to
reorder the responses so that:

1. Oppose (originally 5)

2. Haven't though much about this (originally 0)

3. favor (originally 1)

 

I tried the following, which did not work:

library(car)
data96$V961327 <- recode(data96$V961327, "c(1)=2; c(2)=3; c(3)=1")

 

 

I also tried the following, which also did not work:

new <- as.numeric(data96$V961327)
new
data96$V961327 <- recode(new, "c(5)=1; c(0)=2; c(1)=3")

 

 

 

Help,

Abraham M

Dear Abraham,

If I follow correctly what you want to do, the following should do it:
> f <- factor(c(1, 1, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 9, 0, 0))
> f
 [1] 1 1 5 5 8 8 9 9 0 0
Levels: 0 1 5 8 9
> recode(f, " '1'=3; '5'=1; '0'=2; else=NA
")
 [1] 3    3    1    1    <NA> <NA> <NA> <NA> 2    2   
Levels: 1 2 3

I think that your problem was that you didn't distinguish correctly between
factor levels and their numeric encoding; factor levels should be quoted in
recode().

I hope this helps,
 John

--------------------------------
John Fox
Senator William McMaster 
  Professor of Social Statistics
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at
r-project.org]
On
> Behalf Of Mathew, Abraham T
> Sent: January-28-10 10:15 AM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Recoding Variables in R
> 
> 
> 
> VAR 980490
> 
> Some people have suggested placing new limits on foreign
> 
> imports in order to protect American jobs. Others say
> 
> that such limits would raise consumer prices and hurt
> 
> American exports.
> 
> Do you FAVOR or OPPOSE placing new limits on imports, or
> 
> haven't you thought much about this?
> 
> 1. Favor
> 
> 5. Oppose
> 
> 8. DK
> 
> 9. NA; RF
> 
> 0. Haven't thought much about this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am trying to recode the data for the following public opinion question
from
> the ANES. I would like to throw out 8 and 9. Furthermore, I would like to
> reorder the responses so that:
> 
> 1. Oppose (originally 5)
> 
> 2. Haven't though much about this (originally 0)
> 
> 3. favor (originally 1)
> 
> 
> 
> I tried the following, which did not work:
> 
> library(car)
> data96$V961327 <- recode(data96$V961327, "c(1)=2; c(2)=3;
c(3)=1")
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I also tried the following, which also did not work:
> 
> new <- as.numeric(data96$V961327)
> new
> data96$V961327 <- recode(new, "c(5)=1; c(0)=2; c(1)=3")
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Help,
> 
> Abraham M
> 
> 
> 
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