Using recode() with mutate() and across() to recode multiple variables in r

Question

This is a question more out of curiosity since I have a working solution to my problem, but I really am curious.

I was able to recode multiple variables in a dataframe using mutate/across/case_when (with the help of answers on this site so thank you!)

But I was unable to do the same thing using recode(). Why is that?

Data setup:

library(tidyverse)

df <- data.frame(
  var1 = c(1, 2, 1, 2),
  var2 = c(1, 2, 1, 2),
  var3 = c(1, 2, 1, 2)
)

This code works:

df %>%
  mutate(across(var1:var3, ~ case_when(.x == 1 ~ "No", .x == 2 ~ "Yes")))

This code spits an error about an unexpected '='

df %>%
  mutate(across(var1:var3, ~ recode(.x, 1 = "No", 2 = "Yes")))

Why is that?

Answer 1

When recoding numbers you have to wrap them in quotes or backticks:

library(tidyverse)

df <- data.frame(
  var1 = c(1, 2, 1, 2),
  var2 = c(1, 2, 1, 2),
  var3 = c(1, 2, 1, 2)
)

df %>%
  mutate(across(var1:var3, ~ recode(.x, "1" = "No", "2" = "Yes")))
#>   var1 var2 var3
#> 1   No   No   No
#> 2  Yes  Yes  Yes
#> 3   No   No   No
#> 4  Yes  Yes  Yes