Hi All, I'm perplexed by the way the unclass function displays a factor whose labels have been swapped with the relevel function. I realize it won't affect any results and that the relevel did nothing useful in this particular case. I'm just doing it to learn ways to manipulate factors. The display of unclass leaves me feeling that the relevel had failed.
I've checked three books & searched R-help, but found no mention of this particular issue. The program below demonstrates the problem. Is this a bug, or is there a reason for it to work this way? Thanks, Bob mystring<- ("id,workshop,gender,q1,q2,q3,q4 1,1,f,1,1,5,1 2,2,f,2,1,4,1 3,1,f,2,2,4,3 4,2,f,3,1, ,3 5,1,m,4,5,2,4 6,2,m,5,4,5,5 7,1,m,5,3,4,4 8,2,m,4,5,5,9") mydata<-read.table(textConnection(mystring), header=TRUE,sep=",",row.names="id",na.strings="9") mydata # Create a gender Releveled variable, gR. # Now 1=m, 2=f mydata$gR <- relevel(mydata$gender, "m") # Print the data to show that the labels of gR match those of gender. mydata # Show that the underlying codes have indeed reversed. as.numeric(mydata$gender) as.numeric(mydata$gR) # Unclass the two variables to see that print order # implies that both the codes and labels have # flipped, cancelling each other out. For gR, # m appears to be associated with 2, and f with 1 unclass(mydata$gender) unclass(mydata$gR) ========================================================= Bob Muenchen (pronounced Min'-chen), Manager Statistical Consulting Center U of TN Office of Information Technology 200 Stokely Management Center, Knoxville, TN 37996-0520 Voice: (865) 974-5230 FAX: (865) 974-4810 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://oit.utk.edu/scc, News: http://listserv.utk.edu/archives/statnews.html ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.