Generate a dummy-variable

Question

I have trouble generating the following dummy-variables in R:

I\'m analyzing yearly time series data (time period 1948-2009). I have two questions:

1. <

Answer 1

The ifelse function is best for simple logic like this.

> x <- seq(1950, 1960, 1)

    ifelse(x == 1957, 1, 0)
    ifelse(x <= 1957, 1, 0)

>  [1] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
>  [1] 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0

Also, if you want it to return character data then you can do so.

> x <- seq(1950, 1960, 1)

    ifelse(x == 1957, "foo", "bar")
    ifelse(x <= 1957, "foo", "bar")

>  [1] "bar" "bar" "bar" "bar" "bar" "bar" "bar" "foo" "bar" "bar" "bar"
>  [1] "foo" "foo" "foo" "foo" "foo" "foo" "foo" "foo" "bar" "bar" "bar"

Categorical variables with nesting...

> x <- seq(1950, 1960, 1)

    ifelse(x == 1957, "foo", ifelse(x == 1958, "bar","baz"))

>  [1] "baz" "baz" "baz" "baz" "baz" "baz" "baz" "foo" "bar" "baz" "baz"

This is the most straightforward option.