Cleaning up factor levels (collapsing multiple levels/labels)

Question

What is the most effective (ie efficient / appropriate) way to clean up a factor containing multiple levels that need to be collapsed? That is, how to combine two or more fa

Answer 1

Another way is to make a table containing the mapping:

# stacking the list from Aaron's answer
fmap = stack(list(Yes = c("Y", "Yes"), No = c("N", "No")))

fmap$ind[ match(x, fmap$values) ]
# [1] Yes  Yes  Yes  No   No   
# Levels: No Yes

# or...

library(data.table)
setDT(fmap)[x, on=.(values), ind ]
# [1] Yes  Yes  Yes  No   No   
# Levels: No Yes

I prefer this way, since it leaves behind an easily inspected object summarizing the map; and the data.table code looks just like any other join in that syntax.

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Of course, if you don't want an object like fmap summarizing the change, it can be a "one-liner":

library(data.table)
setDT(stack(list(Yes = c("Y", "Yes"), No = c("N", "No"))))[x, on=.(values), ind ]
# [1] Yes  Yes  Yes  No   No   
# Levels: No Yes