Thanks, Avi. By labels I mean human readable descriptions of variables and values of factor variables. In a plot, I want labels to be used for labelling axes on which a factor is plotted, and variable labels for axes names/descriptions in a plot. I may have borrowed the terminology of variable and value labels from Stata software, which I use.
I use a lot of packages. So, I have nothing against packages. But for labelling, I sometimes worry that I may get tied to a package for something as basic as assigning labels, and some function/packages may not pick up the labels correctly/well when plotting or displaying results. Maybe I am worried for nothing. I have not used R much after 2003. In the past few months I have begun to use R again with R Studio, mostly for plotting and visualization of data. So, you can think of me as a new user. On Thu, 13 Jul 2023 at 00:14, <avi.e.gr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Anupam, > > Your question, even after looking at other messages, remains a bit unclear. > > What do you mean by "labels"? What you mean by variables and values and how > is that related to factors? > > An example or two would be helpful so we can say more than PROBABLY. > Otherwise, you risk having many people here waste lots of time sending > answers to questions you did not ask. > > And why an insistence on not using packages? If you are doing something for > a class, sure, you may need to use the basics you were supposedly taught in > class or a textbook. Otherwise, a good set of packages makes code much > easier to write and often more reliable. Realistically, quite a bit of what > some call base R is actually packages deemed useful enough to be included > at > startup and that can change. > > If you are new to R, note you can attach arbitrary attributes to a variable > and you can have things like named lists where some or all the items have > names as an attribute. > > Factors are part of base R and are a completely different concept. You can > use base R to get or set the base levels of a factor and many other things > and there are advantages sometimes in using a vector in factor mode than > plain but also sometimes disadvantages. > > If you ask a more specific and properly explained question, maybe we can > help you. > > Specifically, please tell us how you plan on using your labels. As an > example, if I make a named list like this: > > mylist <- list(pi=3.14, e=2.7, 666) > > then I can access all elements as in mylist[[2]] without a name but > mylist$pi lets me access that item by name and mylist[["e"]] and I can also > change the current values similarly. But without explaining what you want, > my explanation likely is not what you need. > > But do note that even if you do not USE a package, you can sometimes use it > indirectly by examining the code for a function you like. If it is > primarily > written in R, you may see how it does something and take a part of the code > and use it yourself. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: R-help <r-help-boun...@r-project.org> On Behalf Of Anupam Tyagi > Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 11:49 PM > To: r-help mailing list <r-help@r-project.org> > Subject: [R] Variable and value labels > > Hello, > > is there an easy way to do variable and value labels (for factor variables) > in base-R, without using a package. If not, what is an easy and good way to > do labels, using an add-on package. > > -- > Anupam. > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > 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. > > -- Anupam. [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.
