Label Encoder functionality in R?

Question

In python, scikit has a great function called LabelEncoder that maps categorical levels (strings) to integer representation.

Is there anything in R to do this?

Answer 1

df<- mtcars

head(df)

df$cyl  <- factor(df$cyl)

df$carb <- factor(df$carb)
vec <- sapply(df, is.factor)

catlevels <- sapply(df[vec], levels)

#store the levels for each category
#level appearing first is coded as 1, second as 2 so on

df <- sapply(df, as.numeric)

class(df) #matrix

df <- data.frame(df) 

#converting back to dataframe

head(df)