fact2dummy {StatMatch}R Documentation

Transforms a categorical variable in a set of dummy variables

Description

Transforms a factor or more factors contained in a data frame with a set of dummy variables.

Usage

fact2dummy(data, all=TRUE, lab="x") 

Arguments

data A factor or a data frame that contains one or more factors (columns whose class is “factor” or “ordered”) that have to be substituted by dummy variables.
all Logical. When all=TRUE (default) the output matrix will contain as many dummy variables as the number of the levels of the factor variable. On the contrary, when all=FALSE, the dummy variable related to the last level of the factor is dropped.
lab A character string with the name of the variable to be pasted with its levels. This is used only when data is a factor. By default it is set to “x”.

Details

This function substitutes categorical variables in the input data frame (columns whose class is “factor” or “ordered”) with the corresponding dummy variables.

Value

A matrix with the dummy variables instead of initial factor variables.

Author(s)

Marcello D'Orazio madorazi@istat.it

See Also

gower.dist

Examples


x <- runif(5)
y <- factor(c(1,2,1,2,2))
z <- ordered(c(1,2,3,2,2))
xyz <- data.frame(x,y,z)
fact2dummy(xyz)

fact2dummy(xyz, all=FALSE)

#example with iris data frame
str(iris)
ir.mat <- fact2dummy(iris)


[Package StatMatch version 0.6 Index]