R help - Apr 2010 - Problem with recode -Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) : unexpected end of input in " c(0"

Dear colleagues,
in the help archive there was a previous person who encountered a  
problem with the "recode" command in the car library. I'm not sure
if
that was solved, there was no posting to that effect, but I'm having  
the same problem.

I'm trying to recode a numeric variable with values from 0-100 into a  
binary variable with values (0,1).

The following command:

recode(green_2004_2$french, "c(50:100)=0; c(0:49.99)=1")

gets the following error message

Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) : unexpected end of input in "
c(0"

I tried it with a second numerical variable in the same data set, but  
get precisely the same error at precisely the same location in the  
command, i.e. the second colon.
As far as I can tell I have the most up-to-date version of car  
installed.
Any suggestions?
Yours, Simon Kiss

*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
SSHRC and DAAD Post-Doctoral Fellow
John F. Kennedy Institute of North America Studies
Free University of Berlin
Lansstra?e 7-9
14195 Berlin, Germany
Cell: +49 (0)1525-300-2812,
Web: http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/index.html

Get rid of the unnecessary c(...) construction:

  recode(green_2004_2$french, "50:100=0; 0:49.99=1")

  -Peter Ehlers

On 2010-04-14 1:56, Simon Kiss wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> in the help archive there was a previous person who encountered a
> problem with the "recode" command in the car library. I'm not
sure if
> that was solved, there was no posting to that effect, but I'm having
the
> same problem.
>
> I'm trying to recode a numeric variable with values from 0-100 into a
> binary variable with values (0,1).
>
> The following command:
>
> recode(green_2004_2$french, "c(50:100)=0; c(0:49.99)=1")
>
> gets the following error message
>
> Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) : unexpected end of input in "
c(0"
>
> I tried it with a second numerical variable in the same data set, but
> get precisely the same error at precisely the same location in the
> command, i.e. the second colon.
> As far as I can tell I have the most up-to-date version of car installed.
> Any suggestions?
> Yours, Simon Kiss
>
> *********************************
> Simon J. Kiss, PhD
> SSHRC and DAAD Post-Doctoral Fellow
> John F. Kennedy Institute of North America Studies
> Free University of Berlin
> Lansstra?e 7-9
> 14195 Berlin, Germany
> Cell: +49 (0)1525-300-2812,
> Web: http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/index.html
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
>
-- 
Peter Ehlers
University of Calgary

Dear Simon,

The problem is that the recode specification is incorrect: In recode(),
colons mean ranges, and shouldn't appear within c(), which is used to list
values. See ?recode, and the following example:
> (green_2004_2 <- data.frame(french=runif(10, 0, 100)))
      french
1  42.693517
2  18.063822
3  21.046906
4  17.045596
5   9.308359
6  30.018840
7  53.598261
8  17.739567
9  65.836818
10 37.727236
> recode(green_2004_2$french, "50:100=0; 0:49.99=1")
 [1] 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1

BTW, "50:100=0; 0:50=1" will produce the same result -- again see
?recode.

Finally, it's generally a good idea to send a small reproducible example
with a question like this. What if there were really a data-dependent bug 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 Simon Kiss
> Sent: April-14-10 3:56 AM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Problem with recode -Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) :
> unexpected end of input in " c(0"
> 
> Dear colleagues,
> in the help archive there was a previous person who encountered a
> problem with the "recode" command in the car library. I'm not
sure if
> that was solved, there was no posting to that effect, but I'm having
> the same problem.
> 
> I'm trying to recode a numeric variable with values from 0-100 into a
> binary variable with values (0,1).
> 
> The following command:
> 
> recode(green_2004_2$french, "c(50:100)=0; c(0:49.99)=1")
> 
> gets the following error message
> 
> Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) : unexpected end of input in "
c(0"
> 
> I tried it with a second numerical variable in the same data set, but
> get precisely the same error at precisely the same location in the
> command, i.e. the second colon.
> As far as I can tell I have the most up-to-date version of car
> installed.
> Any suggestions?
> Yours, Simon Kiss
> 
> *********************************
> Simon J. Kiss, PhD
> SSHRC and DAAD Post-Doctoral Fellow
> John F. Kennedy Institute of North America Studies
> Free University of Berlin
> Lansstra?e 7-9
> 14195 Berlin, Germany
> Cell: +49 (0)1525-300-2812,
> Web: http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/index.html
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

On Apr 14, 2010, at 2:56 AM, Simon Kiss wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
> in the help archive there was a previous person who encountered a  
> problem with the "recode" command in the car library. I'm not
sure
> if that was solved, there was no posting to that effect, but I'm  
> having the same problem.
>
> I'm trying to recode a numeric variable with values from 0-100 into  
> a binary variable with values (0,1).
>
> The following command:
>
> recode(green_2004_2$french, "c(50:100)=0; c(0:49.99)=1")
Look at the last example in the recode help page:
recode(x, "1:2='A'; 3='B'")
## [1] "A" "A" "B" "A" "A"
"B" "A" "A" "B"
It appears to me that the c() function around your sequences may be  
part of the problem and I further wondered whether 0:49.99 can  
succeed. Generally the ":" operator expects integer arguments, but the
help page is not clear in this area and it appears that recode has a  
different interpretation.
 > require(car)
 > recode(x, "-Inf:0=-1; 0.000001:Inf=1") # succeeds
-- 
David
>
> gets the following error message
>
> Error in parse(text = range[[1]][1]) : unexpected end of input in "  
> c(0"
>
> I tried it with a second numerical variable in the same data set,  
> but get precisely the same error at precisely the same location in  
> the command, i.e. the second colon.
> As far as I can tell I have the most up-to-date version of car  
> installed.
> Any suggestions?
> Yours, Simon Kiss
>
> *********************************
> Simon J. Kiss, PhD
> SSHRC and DAAD Post-Doctoral Fellow
> John F. Kennedy Institute of North America Studies
> Free University of Berlin
> Lansstra?e 7-9
> 14195 Berlin, Germany
> Cell: +49 (0)1525-300-2812,
> Web: http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/index.html
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.