R Convert Categorical Data Frame Column to Numeric / Integer (Example Code)
In this R tutorial you’ll learn how to convert a categorical variable to numeric.
Example Data
data(iris) # Load example data head(iris) # Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species # 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa # 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa # 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa # 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa # 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa # 6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa |
data(iris) # Load example data head(iris) # Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species # 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 setosa # 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 setosa # 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 setosa # 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 setosa # 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 setosa # 6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 setosa
Example: Convert Categorical Variable of Data Frame to Integer Using unclass() Function
iris_new <- iris # Duplicate iris data set iris_new$Species <- unclass(iris_new$Species) # Apply unclass function to Species column head(iris_new) # Head of new iris data set # Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species # 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 1 # 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 1 # 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 1 # 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 1 # 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 1 # 6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 1 |
iris_new <- iris # Duplicate iris data set iris_new$Species <- unclass(iris_new$Species) # Apply unclass function to Species column head(iris_new) # Head of new iris data set # Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species # 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.2 1 # 2 4.9 3.0 1.4 0.2 1 # 3 4.7 3.2 1.3 0.2 1 # 4 4.6 3.1 1.5 0.2 1 # 5 5.0 3.6 1.4 0.2 1 # 6 5.4 3.9 1.7 0.4 1
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