Package: base

Function: as.character()

1. Recode all ID variables to character

Review the data (d8)

# A tibble: 3 x 4
  stu_id tch_id sch_id grade
   <dbl>  <dbl>  <dbl> <dbl>
1   5000    200     13     6
2   5002    201     13     7
3   5003    200     13     6

View the class for each variable

dplyr::glimpse(d8)
Rows: 3
Columns: 4
$ stu_id <dbl> 5000, 5002, 5003
$ tch_id <dbl> 200, 201, 200
$ sch_id <dbl> 13, 13, 13
$ grade  <dbl> 6, 7, 6

I see that my ID variables are stored as numeric but I want them to be stored as character.

Here I am going to bring in my existing data dictionary to help me choose the variables to recode.

Let’s view our data dictionary

# A tibble: 4 x 3
  var_name type      label              
  <chr>    <chr>     <chr>              
1 stu_id   character student study ID   
2 tch_id   character teacher study ID   
3 sch_id   character school study ID    
4 grade    numeric   student grade level

I can pull a vector of all the variables that should be character type.

var_char <- dict %>%
  dplyr::filter(type == "character") %>%
  dplyr::pull(var_name)

And then use this vector to update the type of multiple variables.

d8 <- d8 %>%
  dplyr::mutate(across(all_of(var_char), base::as.character))

Now we can check our variable types again.

dplyr::glimpse(d8)
Rows: 3
Columns: 4
$ stu_id <chr> "5000", "5002", "5003"
$ tch_id <chr> "200", "201", "200"
$ sch_id <chr> "13", "13", "13"
$ grade  <dbl> 6, 7, 6

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