Here's a trivial example of what I'm trying to do:
iris %>%
mutate(Species2 = ifelse(Species %in% c("setosa", "virginica"), "other", as.character(Species)) %>% as.factor) %>%
str
# 'data.frame': 150 obs. of 6 variables:
# $ Sepal.Length: num 5.1 4.9 4.7 4.6 5 5.4 4.6 5 4.4 4.9 ...
# $ Sepal.Width : num 3.5 3 3.2 3.1 3.6 3.9 3.4 3.4 2.9 3.1 ...
# $ Petal.Length: num 1.4 1.4 1.3 1.5 1.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 1.4 1.5 ...
# $ Petal.Width : num 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.1 ...
# $ Species : Factor w/ 3 levels "setosa","versicolor",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
# $ Species2 : Factor w/ 2 levels "Other","versicolor": 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
However, if I want to do multiple merges, I'd end up with deeply nested ifelse
statements, which I'm trying to avoid. What's the most elegant way to do this? Preferably I can incorporate the solution into a dplyr pipeline.