You could use quantile() to create the breakpoints > x <- c(47677, 47602, 47678, 47905, 47909, 47906, 47605, 47673, 47607) > cutX <- cut(x, breaks=quantile(x, (0:3)/3), include.lowest=TRUE) > cutX [1] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] [4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] [5] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] [4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] [9] [4.76e+04,4.77e+04] Levels: [4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] > table(cutX) cutX [4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] 3 3 3
This will fail if there are only 2 distinct values in the dataset. Bill Dunlap Spotfire, TIBCO Software wdunlap tibco.com > -----Original Message----- > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On > Behalf Of Erin Hodgess > Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2011 7:15 PM > To: R help > Subject: [R] a weird "cut" question > > Dear R People: > > I have the following data: > > > ail.df[,1] > [1] 47677 47602 47678 47905 47909 47906 47605 47673 47607 > > cut(ail.df[,1],breaks=3) > [1] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] > [4] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] > [7] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] > Levels: (4.76e+04,4.77e+04] (4.77e+04,4.78e+04] (4.78e+04,4.79e+04] > > > so I have cut ail.df[,1] into 3 levels. However, the second level > never appears in the data set. > > Is there a way to set cut such that every level appears, please? > > thanks in advance, > Sincerely, > Erin > > > -- > Erin Hodgess > Associate Professor > Department of Computer and Mathematical Sciences > University of Houston - Downtown > mailto: erinm.hodg...@gmail.com > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org 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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org 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.