[R] Assigning categorical values to dates

[Bert Gunter]

You have been told how to do it. If you do not understand, you should find
a suitable tutorial to learn about how R factors work. There are some
difficulties in converting dates on an ongoing basis to factors, so I think
you should take Tom's advice to rethink this. It sounds as if you might
also do well to find someone with more R experience to consult with... "How
in the world do  I..." does not inspire confidence that you know what you
are doing.

Cheers,
Bert



On Wed, Jul 21, 2021, 8:47 PM N. F. Parsons <nathan.f.parsons using gmail.com>
wrote:

> I am not averse to a factor-based solution, but I would still have to
> manually enter that factor each month, correct? If possible, I’d just like
> to point R at that column and have it do the work.
>
> —
> Nathan Parsons, B.SC, M.Sc, G.C.
>
> Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Sociology, Portland State University
> Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Washington State University
> Graduate Advocate, American Association of University Professors (OR)
>
> Recent work (
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathan_Parsons3/publications)
> Schedule an appointment (https://calendly.com/nate-parsons)
>
> > On Wednesday, Jul 21, 2021 at 8:30 PM, Tom Woolman <
> twoolman using ontargettek.com (mailto:twoolman using ontargettek.com)> wrote:
> >
> > Couldn't you convert the date columns to character type data in a data
> > frame, and then convert those strings to factors in a 2nd step?
> >
> > The only downside I think to treating dates as factor levels is that
> > you might have an awful lot of factors if you have a large enough
> > dataset.
> >
> >
> >
> > Quoting "N. F. Parsons" <nathan.f.parsons using gmail.com>:
> >
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > If I have a tibble as follows:
> > >
> > > tibble(dates = c(rep("2021-07-04", 2), rep("2021-07-25", 3),
> > > rep("2021-07-18", 4)))
> > >
> > > how in the world do I add a column that evaluates each of those dates
> and
> > > assigns it a categorical value such that
> > >
> > > dates cycle
> > > <chr> <chr>
> > > 2021-07-04 1
> > > 2021-07-04 1
> > > 2021-07-25 3
> > > 2021-07-25 3
> > > 2021-07-25 3
> > > 2021-07-18 2
> > > 2021-07-18 2
> > > 2021-07-18 2
> > > 2021-07-18 2
> > >
> > > Not to further complicate matters, but some months I may only have one
> > > date, and some months I will have 4 dates - so thats not a fixed
> quantity.
> > > We've literally been doing this by hand at my job and I'd like to
> automate
> > > it.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > >
> > > Nate Parsons
> > >
> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> > >
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> ______________________________________________
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