TraMineR (version 1.6-2)

seqnum: Translate a sequence object's alphabet into numerical alphabet, ranging 0-(nbstates-1).

Description

If the alphabet (the list of possible states or events in a set of sequences) is composed of characters, this function converts the sequence data using a numerical alphabet. The first state (for exemple 'A') is coded with the value '0', the second state (for exemple 'B') is coded with the value '1', etc... The function returns a sequence object containing the original sequences coded with the new numerical alphabet.

Usage

seqnum(seqdata, with.missing=FALSE)

Arguments

seqdata

a sequence object as defined by the seqdef function.

with.missing

if TRUE, missing elements in the sequences are turned into numerical values as well. The code for missing values in the sequences is retrieved as the 'nr' attribute of seqdata.

Examples

data(actcal)
actcal.seq <- seqdef(actcal,13:24)

## The first 10 sequences in the actcal.seq
## sequence object
actcal.seq[1:10,]
alphabet(actcal.seq)

## The first 10 sequences in the actcal.seq
## sequence object with numerical alphabet
seqnum(actcal.seq[1:10,])

## states A,B,C,D are now coded 0,1,2,3
alphabet(seqnum(actcal.seq))