Identifying Categorical and Continuous Variables

In general, variables and data represent groups of things about categorical or discrete characteristics, or they represent measurements on a continuous scale. Examples of categorical variables are a person's occupation or the number of inquiries made for borrowers over the last 5 months. Examples of continuous variables are a person's income or the daily temperature of the ocean.

The following table describes how Xpress Insight identifies categorical and continuous variables.

Categorical and Continuous Variables

Variable Type	Identification Criteria
Categorical - Numeric	Numeric variables with 10 or fewer unique values
Categorical - String	All string variables
Continuous	Numeric variables with more than 10 unique values

Note For numeric variables, any non-numeric value, such as a dollar sign ($), causes the variable to be interpreted as a string variable—a single period is valid within a numeric value, but two or more periods would cause the value to be interpreted as a string.

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