topic Re: replacing numbers with strings in Discussions

replacing numbers with strings

adham_saif — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 07:17:22 GMT

hey,

i have a column COL_A, which has 31 rows for wach number between 1 - 31 ( 31 rows of 1, 31 rows of 2 .... etc), and i want to replace those numbers with 31 strings in a specifiec order, for example:

if my string are in this order: horse, cat, dog ....etc, i want to replace the 1's with horse, the 2's with cat, the 3's with dog...., what is the best and fastest way to do it?

Re: replacing numbers with strings

txnelson — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 09:43:09 GMT

I believe the fastest way to make this change would be to use "Recode".
Go to the column header for the column you want to change the values for, and right click on the header and select "Recode"

Re: replacing numbers with strings

andersonmj2 — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 15:36:30 GMT

I agree with Recode ... but there are other options depending on your usage:

1. A script with If-Then-Else statements ... so you would have If C1=="1" Then "Horse" and so on. Even for 31, that can get cumbersome ... but possible. I will typically only use this for max of ~6 items.

2. LinkID / LinkReference table. I use this a ton - we run loads of experiments in our development line (I am a happy/busy statistician :) ) with condition keys on the parts we generate done as letters A-Z, and so on. When setting things up I will always have a core table before randomization with the condition in a column and the conditions in other columns. The COndition is made a LinkID

Since we do many tests, in the results we only use the Condition ID (A-Z) and any specific test information (e.g. where on a part we take the data), and then use LinkReference on the Condition in the results table to go back to the Experimental Conditions table. Incredibly powerful!

In your case you could simply have a column with 1-31, and a second column with the values Horse, Cat, Dog, etc. Then use the LinkIDReference feature to get at the values.

Re: replacing numbers with strings

Craige_Hales — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 10:55:01 GMT

(Also agree with recode.)

A script for this might look something like this

dt = Open( "$sample_data/big class.jmp" );
dt << New Column( "group", character );
label = {"baby", "toddler", "toddler", "pre-k", "k", "1st", "2nd", "3rd", "4th", "5th", "6th", "middle", "middle", "middle", "high", "high", "high"};
For Each Row( group = label[age] );

Grouped ages

The if-then-else approach might be better if your data isn't contiguous, starting at one, or if there are only a few groups.