How to create factor variable with unequal groups in R? Getting warning

Question

I am trying to create a factor variable with 3 groups: 0, 1-2, and 3+.

I was using the cut function to make unequal breaks:

set.seed(2) 
x <- rpois(n = 1000, lambda = 1.5) 

breaks <- c(0, 1, 2, 3:max(x))

cut(x, breaks = breaks, right = TRUE)


## But this gives me the following: 

Levels: (0,1] (1,2] (2,3] (3,8]


## I tried this as well: 

breaks <- c(0, seq(1, 2, by = 1), 3:max(x))


## But that gives me: 

Levels: (0,1] (1,2] (2,3] (3,4] (4,5] (5,6] (6,7] (7,8]

edit:

The following gives me the correct levels:

breaks <- c(0, 1, 3, Inf) 
cut(x, breaks, right = FALSE, include.lowest = TRUE) 

Levels: [0,1) [1,3) [3,Inf]

But I am getting an error message that my level [2] is duplicated:

x.factor <- factor(x, levels = cut(x, breaks = c(0, 1, 3, Inf), right = FALSE, 
                                       include.lowest = TRUE))

Not sure where to go from here.. any ideas?

Answer 1

Here, we can change the breaks with a large number at the end and specify the labels

grp <- cut(x, breaks = c(0:2, Inf), right = TRUE, 
        labels = c('0', '1-2', '3+'), include.lowest = TRUE)
levels(grp)
#[1] "0"   "1-2" "3+" 

head(x)
#[1] 0 2 2 0 4 4

head(grp)
#[1] 0   1-2 1-2 0   3+  3+ 
#Levels: 0 1-2 3+