Categorical Data

Often, we have to deal with factors that take on a small number of levels:

v = ["Group A", "Group A", "Group A",
     "Group B", "Group B", "Group B"]

The naive encoding used in an Array or in a NullableArray represents every entry of this vector as a full string. In contrast, we can represent the data more efficiently by replacing the strings with indices into a small pool of levels. This is what the CategoricalArray type does:

cv = CategoricalArray(["Group A", "Group A", "Group A",
                       "Group B", "Group B", "Group B"])

A companion type, NullableCategoricalArray, allows storing missing values in the array: is to CategoricalArray what NullableArray is to the standard Array type.

In addition to representing repeated data efficiently, the CategoricalArray type allows us to determine efficiently the allowed levels of the variable at any time using the levels function (note that levels may or may not be actually used in the data):

levels(cv)

The levels! function also allows changing the order of appearance of the levels, which can be useful for display purposes or when working with ordered variables.

By default, a CategoricalArray is able to represent 2<sup>32</sup>differents levels. You can use less memory by calling the compact function:

cv = compact(cv)

Often, you will have factors encoded inside a DataTable with Array or NullableArray columns instead of CategoricalArray or NullableCategoricalArray columns. You can do conversion of a single column using the categorical function:

cv = categorical(v)

Or you can edit the columns of a DataTable in-place using the categorical! function:

dt = DataTable(A = [1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2],
               B = ["X", "X", "X", "Y", "Y", "Y"])
categorical!(dt, [:A, :B])

Using categorical arrays is important for working with the GLM package. When fitting regression models, CategoricalArray and NullableCategoricalArray columns in the input are translated into 0/1 indicator columns in the ModelMatrix with one column for each of the levels of the CategoricalArray/NullableCategoricalArray. This allows one to analyze categorical data efficiently.

See the CategoricalArrays package for more information regarding categorical arrays.