subscat#

Purpose#

Changes the values in a vector depending on the category a particular element falls in.

Format#

y = subscat(x, breaks, levels)#
Parameters:

  • x (Nx1 vector) – data

  • breaks (Px1 numeric vector) – contains breakpoints specifying the ranges within which substitution is to be made. This MUST be sorted in ascending order. breaks can contain a missing value as a separate category if the missing value is the first element in breaks. If breaks is a scalar, all matches must be exact for a substitution to be made.

  • levels (Px1 vector) – contains values to be substituted.

Returns:

y (Nx1 vector) –

the elements in levels substituted for the original elements of x according to which of the regions the elements of x fall into:

x ≤ breaks[1] → levels[1]
breaks[1] < x ≤ breaks[2] → levels[2]
...
breaks[p - 1] < x ≤ breaks[p] → levels[p]
x > breaks[p] → the original value of x

If missing is not a category specified in breaks, missings in x are passed through without change.

Examples#

Example 1#

// BMI Data
bmi = { 36,
        19,
        24,
        38,
        34,
        16,
        26,
        37,
        20,
        34 };

// Set the breakpoints for the new categories
breaks = { 18.5, 25, 30, 40 };

// The categorical levels
levels = { 0, 1, 2, 3 };

bmi_levels = subscat(bmi, breaks, levels);

The above code assigns the following values:

bmi = 36   bmi_levels = 3
      19                1
      24                1
      38                3
      34                3
      16                0
      26                2
      37                3
      20                1
      34                3

Example 2#

This example combines 2 levels in a categorical label into one category.

// Create categorical vector with 3 levels
x = { 1,
      1,
      2,
      2,
      1,
      1,
      2,
      0,
      2,
      0 };

// Assign all instances of 2 to 1, merging the second and third categories
x = subscat(x, 2, 1);

After the code above, x is equal to:

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
0
1
0

Replacing instances of one particular value with another value can also be accomplished with reclassify() and substute()

Remarks#

reclassifyCuts() offers functionality similar to subscat(), but:

  • Also assigns values to data past the final breakpoint.

  • Offers the option of whether the breakpoints are open or closed on the right(e.g., < or ≤).

  • Assigns the input to two categories in the case of a single breakpoint, (e.g., \(level\_1 < break < level\_2\)). Whereas, subscat() tests for equality in the case of a single breakpoint.

See also

Functions reclassify(), reclassifyCuts(), substute()

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