I have a data frame with a continuous numeric variable, age in months (age_mnths). I want to make a new discrete variable, with age categories based on age intervals.
# Some example data
rota2 <- data.frame(age_mnth = 1:170)
I've created ifelse based procedure (below), but I believe there is a possibility for more elegant solution.
rota2$age_gr<-ifelse(rota2$age_mnth < 6, rr2 <- "0-5 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth > 5 & rota2$age_mnth < 12, rr2 <- "6-11 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth > 11 & rota2$age_mnth < 24, rr2 <- "12-23 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth > 23 & rota2$age_mnth < 60, rr2 <- "24-59 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth > 59 & rota2$age_mnth < 167, rr2 <- "5-14 yrs",
rr2 <- "adult")))))
I know there is cut function but I couldn't deal with it for my purpose to discretize / categorize.
If there is a reason you don't want to use cut then I don't understand why. cut will work fine for what you want to do
# Some example data
rota2 <- data.frame(age_mnth = 1:170)
# Your way of doing things to compare against
rota2$age_gr<-ifelse(rota2$age_mnth<6,rr2<-"0-5 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth>5&rota2$age_mnth<12,rr2<-"6-11 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth>11&rota2$age_mnth<24,rr2<-"12-23 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth>23&rota2$age_mnth<60,rr2<-"24-59 mnths",
ifelse(rota2$age_mnth>59&rota2$age_mnth<167,rr2<-"5-14 yrs",
rr2<-"adult")))))
# Using cut
rota2$age_grcut <- cut(rota2$age_mnth,
breaks = c(-Inf, 6, 12, 24, 60, 167, Inf),
labels = c("0-5 mnths", "6-11 mnths", "12-23 mnths", "24-59 mnths", "5-14 yrs", "adult"),
right = FALSE)