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## Introduction

In this post, we will learn to work with categorical/qualitative data in R using forcats. Let us begin by installing and loading forcats and a set of other pacakges we will be using.

## Libraries & Code

We will use the following packages:

The codes from here.

library(forcats)
library(tibble)
library(magrittr)
library(purrr)
library(dplyr)
library(ggplot2)
library(readr)

## Case Study

We will use a case study to explore the various features of the forcats package. You can download the data for the case study from here or directly import the data using the readr package. We will do the following in this case study:

• compute the frequency of different referrers
• plot average number of pages browsed for different referrers
• collapse referrers with low sample size into a single group
• club traffic from social media websites into a new category
• group referrers with traffic below a threshold into a single category

### Data

ecom <-
col_types = cols_only(
referrer = col_factor(levels = c("bing", "direct", "social", "yahoo", "google")),
n_pages = col_double(), duration = col_double()
)
)

ecom
## # A tibble: 1,000 x 3
##    referrer n_pages duration
##
##  2 yahoo          1      459
##  3 direct         1      996
##  4 bing          18      468
##  5 yahoo          1      955
##  6 yahoo          5      135
##  7 yahoo          1       75
##  8 direct         1      908
##  9 bing          19      209
## # ... with 990 more rows

Let us extract the referrer column from the above data using use_series and save it in a new variable referrers. Instead of using ecom which is a tibble, we will use referrers which is a vector. We do this to avoid extracting the referrer column from the above data in later examples.

referrers <- use_series(ecom, referrer)

## Tabulate Referrers

Let us look at the traffic driven by different referrer types.

fct_count(referrers)
## # A tibble: 5 x 2
##   f          n
##
## 1 bing     194
## 2 direct   191
## 3 social   200
## 4 yahoo    207
## 5 google   208

If you want to sort the output in descending order, use sort and set it to TRUE.

fct_count(referrers, sort = TRUE)
## # A tibble: 5 x 2
##   f          n
##
## 2 yahoo    207
## 3 social   200
## 4 bing     194
## 5 direct   191

Use fct_unique to view the categories or levels of the referrer variable.

fct_unique(referrers)
## [1] bing   direct social yahoo  google
## Levels: bing direct social yahoo google

## Reorder Referrers

We want to examine the average number of pages visited by each referrer type.

refer_summary <-
ecom %>%
group_by(referrer) %>%
summarise(
page = mean(n_pages),
tos = mean(duration),
n = n()
)

refer_summary
## # A tibble: 5 x 4
##   referrer  page   tos     n
##
## 1 bing      6.13  368.   194
## 2 direct    6.38  358.   191
## 3 social    5.42  355.   200
## 4 yahoo     5.99  336.   207
## 5 google    5.73  360.   208

Let us plot the average number of pages visited by each referrer type.

refer_summary %>%
ggplot() +
geom_point(aes(page, referrer))

Use fct_reorder to reorder the referrer types by the average number of pages visited.

refer_summary %>%
ggplot() +
geom_point(aes(page, fct_reorder(referrer, page)))

## Plot Referrer Frequency (Descending Order)

Since we want to plot the referrers in descending order of frequency, we will use fct_infreq() to reorder by frequency.

referrers %>%
fct_infreq() %>%
fct_unique()
## [1] google yahoo  social bing   direct
## Levels: google yahoo social bing direct

Now that we know how to reorder categories/levels by frequency, let us reorder the referrers by frequency and plot them.

ecom %>%
mutate(
ref = referrer %>%
fct_infreq()
) %>%
ggplot(aes(ref)) +
geom_bar()

## Plot Referrer Frequency (Ascending Order)

Let us look at the categories of the referrer variable.

fct_unique(referrers)
## [1] bing   direct social yahoo  google
## Levels: bing direct social yahoo google

Since we want to plot the referrers in ascending order of frequency, we will use fct_rev() to reverse the order.

referrers %>%
fct_rev() %>%
fct_unique()
## [1] google yahoo  social direct bing
## Levels: google yahoo social direct bing

Let us reorder the referrers by frequency first and then reverse the order before plotting their frequencies.

ecom %>%
mutate(
ref = referrer %>%
fct_infreq() %>%
fct_rev()
) %>%
ggplot(aes(ref)) +
geom_bar()

## Case Study 2

In this case study, we will learn to:

• combine categories
• recategorize

The data set we will use has just one column traffics i.e. the source of traffic for a imaginary website.

### Data

traffic <-
col_types = list(
col_factor(levels = c("affiliates", "bing", "direct", "facebook",
)
)
)

traffic
## # A tibble: 48,232 x 1
##    traffics
##
## # ... with 48,222 more rows

Let us extract the traffics column from the above data using use_series and save it in a new variable traffics. Instead of using traffic which is a tibble, we will use traffics which is a vector. We do this to avoid extracting the traffics column from the above data in all the examples shown below.

traffics <- use_series(traffic, traffics)

## Tabulate Referrer

Let us compute the traffic driven by different referrers using fct_count.

fct_count(traffics)
## # A tibble: 9 x 2
##   f              n
##
## 1 affiliates  7641
## 2 bing        5893
## 3 direct      1350
## 5 yahoo       4899
## 7 instagram   3907
## 9 unknown     2657

## Collapse Referrer Categories

We want to group some of the referrers into 2 categories:

• social
• search

To group categories/levels, we will use fct_collapse().

traffics %>%
fct_collapse(
) %>%
fct_count()
## # A tibble: 5 x 2
##   f              n
##
## 1 affiliates  7641
## 2 search     20021
## 3 direct      1350
## 4 social     16563
## 5 unknown     2657

The above result can be achieved using fct_recode() as shown below:

fct_recode(traffics,
search = "bing",
search = "yahoo",
social = "instagram") %>%
levels()
## [1] "affiliates" "search"     "direct"     "social"     "unknown"

## Lump Infrequent Referrer Types

Let us group together referrer types that drive low traffic to the website. Use fct_lump() to lump together categories.

fct_count(traffics)
## # A tibble: 9 x 2
##   f              n
##
## 1 affiliates  7641
## 2 bing        5893
## 3 direct      1350
## 5 yahoo       4899
## 7 instagram   3907
## 9 unknown     2657

traffics %>%
fct_lump() %>%
table()
## .
##       7641       5893       8135       4899       9229       3907
##       4521       2657       1350

## Retain top 3 referrers

We want to retain the top 3 referrers and combine the rest of them into a single category.

## # A tibble: 9 x 2
##   f              n
##
## 3 affiliates  7641
## 4 bing        5893
## 5 yahoo       4899
## 7 instagram   3907
## 8 unknown     2657
## 9 direct      1350

Use fct_lump() and set the argument n to 3 indicating we want to retain top 3 categories and combine the rest.

traffics %>%
fct_lump(n = 3) %>%
table()
## .
##       7641       8135       9229      23227

## Lump Referrer Types with less than 10% traffic

Let us combine referrers that drive less than 10% traffic to the website.

## # A tibble: 9 x 3
##   f              n percent
##
## 1 affiliates  7641   15.8
## 2 bing        5893   12.2
## 3 direct      1350    2.8
## 5 yahoo       4899   10.2
## 7 instagram   3907    8.1
## 9 unknown     2657    5.51

Since we are looking at proportion of traffic driven to the website and not the actual numbers, we use the prop argument and set it to 0.1, indicating that we want to retain only those categories which have a proportion of more than 10% and combine the rest.

traffics %>%
fct_lump(prop = 0.1) %>%
table()
## .
##       7641       5893       8135       4899       9229      12435

## Retain 3 Referrer Types with lowest traffic

What if we want to retain 3 referrers which drive the lowest traffic to the website and combine the rest?

## # A tibble: 9 x 2
##   f              n
##
## 1 direct      1350
## 2 unknown     2657
## 3 instagram   3907
## 5 yahoo       4899
## 6 bing        5893
## 7 affiliates  7641
## 9 google      9229

We will still use the n argument but instead of specifying 3, we now specify -3.

traffics %>%
fct_lump(n = -3) %>%
table()
## .
##    direct instagram   unknown     Other
##      1350      3907      2657     40318

## Retain 3 Referrer Types with less than 10% traffic

Let us see how to retain referrers that drive less than 10 % traffic to the website and combine the rest into a single group.

## # A tibble: 9 x 3
##   f              n percent
##
## 1 affiliates  7641   15.8
## 2 bing        5893   12.2
## 3 direct      1350    2.8
## 5 yahoo       4899   10.2
## 7 instagram   3907    8.1
## 9 unknown     2657    5.51

Instead of setting prop to 0.1, we will set it to -0.1.

traffics %>%
fct_lump(prop = -0.1) %>%
table()
## .
##    direct instagram   twitter   unknown     Other
##      1350      3907      4521      2657     35797

## Replace Levels

Let us assume we want to retain a couple of important categories and group the rest into a single category. In the below example, we retain google and yahoo while grouping the rest as others using fct_other().

fct_other(traffics, keep = c("google", "yahoo")) %>%
levels()
## [1] "yahoo"  "google" "Other"

## Drop Levels

What if you want to drop a couple of categories instead of grouping them? Use the drop argument in fct_other() and specify the categories to be dropped. In the below example, we drop the following referrer categories:

• instagram
fct_other(traffics, drop = c("instagram", "twitter")) %>%
levels()
## [1] "affiliates" "bing"       "direct"     "facebook"   "yahoo"
## [6] "google"     "unknown"    "Other"

## Reorder Levels

The categories can be reordered using fct_relevel(). In the above example, we reorder the categories to ensure google appears first. Similarly in the below example, we reorder the levels to ensure twitter appears first irrespective of its frequency or order of appearance in the data.

fct_relevel(traffics, "twitter") %>%
levels()
## [6] "yahoo"      "google"     "instagram"  "unknown"

If the category needs to appear at a particular position, use the after argument and specify the position after which it should appear. For example, if google should be the third category, we would specify after = 2 i.e. google should come after the 2nd position (i.e. third position).

fct_relevel(traffics, "google", after = 2) %>%
levels()
## [6] "yahoo"      "instagram"  "twitter"    "unknown"

If the category should appear last, supply the value Inf (infinity) to the after argument as shown below.

fct_relevel(traffics, "facebook", after = Inf) %>%
levels()
## [1] "affiliates" "bing"       "direct"     "yahoo"      "google"
## [6] "instagram"  "twitter"    "unknown"    "facebook"

## Case Study 3

In this case study, we deal with categorical data which is ordered and cyclical. It contains response to an imaginary survey.

### Data

response_data <-
col_types = list(col_factor(levels = c("like", "like somewhat", "neutral",
"dislike somewhat", "dislike"), ordered = TRUE)
)
)

Since we will be using only one column from the above data set, let us extract it using use_series() and save it as responses.

responses <- use_series(response_data, response)
levels(responses)
## [1] "like"             "like somewhat"    "neutral"
## [4] "dislike somewhat" "dislike"

## Shift Levels

To shift the levels, we use fct_shift(). Use the n argument to indicate the direction of the shift. If n is positive, the levels are shifted to the left else to the right. In the below example, we shift the levels to the left by 2 positions.

fct_shift(responses, 2) %>%
levels()
## [1] "neutral"          "dislike somewhat" "dislike"
## [4] "like"             "like somewhat"

To shift the levels to the right, supply a negative value to the n argument in fct_shift(). In the below example, we shift the levels to the right by 2 positions.

fct_shift(responses, -2) %>%
levels()
## [1] "dislike somewhat" "dislike"          "like"
## [4] "like somewhat"    "neutral"