rec into the same variable

[andresimi]

Hi, the standard option in rec is recoding into a new variable. Is there a way for doing this into the same variable? When I use suffix="" it creates new variables with numbers as suffix.

[Daniel]

Yes, "overwriting" existing variables is not directly possible (for safety reasons). The current way to do this is to return only the recoded variables (w/o suffix) and replace the old variables, using add_colums():

library(sjmisc)
dat <- data.frame(
  a = c(1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2),
  b = c(1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3),
  c = c(1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 4)
)

dat
#>   a b c
#> 1 1 1 1
#> 2 1 1 1
#> 3 1 1 1
#> 4 2 3 4
#> 5 2 3 4
#> 6 2 3 4

dat %>%
  rec(a, b, rec = "1=5;else=copy", append = F, suffix = "") %>% 
  add_columns(dat)
#>   a b c
#> 1 5 5 1
#> 2 5 5 1
#> 3 5 5 1
#> 4 2 3 4
#> 5 2 3 4
#> 6 2 3 4

[Daniel]

Maybe I could in general (for all recode and transformation functions) make suffix = "" overwrite existing variables.