How can I change existing values to a new category in the same column?

Question

Based on the table below, how would I be able to put "wedding" and "renewable_energy" which both occur less frequently, into the "other" category?

Using ifelse: `loans$reason <- ifelse(loans$reason %in% c("wedding", "renewable_energy"), "other", loans$reason)` — zx8754, Mar 09 '21 at 12:30
That changed the values to numbers for some reason, but it kept other — Feverish123, Mar 09 '21 at 12:38
Provide example data, and expected output. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example — zx8754, Mar 09 '21 at 12:41

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 09 '21 at 12:49

1

loans$reason <- factor(ifelse(as.character(loans$reason) %in% c("wedding", "renewable_energy"), "other", loans$reason))

Your reason column is probably of type factor, hence it changed to numbers, so you need to convert to character first. And optionally, after that to factor again.

answered Mar 09 '21 at 12:49

Lennyy

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That still replaces the variables with numbers for some reason. Any ideas why? – Feverish123 Mar 09 '21 at 22:38
Then please add sample data and expected output as @zx8754 mentioned so we can look into it. – Lennyy Mar 10 '21 at 06:05

How can I change existing values to a new category in the same column?

1 Answers1