Oct
27
Substitute levels in a factor or character vector
I've been using the ggplot2 package a lot recently. When creating a legend or tick marks on the axes, ggplot2 uses the levels of a character or factor vector. Most of the time, I am working with coded variables that use some abbreviation of the "true" meaning (e.g. "f" for female and "m" for male or single characters for some single character for a location: "S" for Stuttgart and "M" for Mannheim).
In my plots, I don't want these codes but the full name of the level. Since I am not aware of any super-fast and easy to use function in base R (let me know in the comments if there is one), I came up with a very simple function and put this in my .Rprofile (that means that it is available whenever I start R). I called it "replace.levels".
In my plots, I don't want these codes but the full name of the level. Since I am not aware of any super-fast and easy to use function in base R (let me know in the comments if there is one), I came up with a very simple function and put this in my .Rprofile (that means that it is available whenever I start R). I called it "replace.levels".
