# Statistical Classification Method to Compare PURELY Categorical Data?

I have about a half-dozen variables, each of which can have anywhere from three to ten outcomes. I have to measure the degree of separation/similarity between rows.

Either we can do some sort of weighted system for each variable and then go by a cutoff percent, or we can apply some sort of classification technique?

I was thinking k-NN, but it's not designed for categorical data. I know that there is an extension for categorical data, but what's the difference between percentage/weighted similarity?

Open to thoughts or clarifications of my assumptions. Thank you.

EDIT: Adding some example data (not exactly the same but simplified)

TIME RANGE |   TYPE   |  REGION  |   MANAGER   | ....... | ....... |
===========|==========|==========|=============|=========|=========|
SHORT    |   STOCK  |    US    |  JP MORGAN  |   ...   |   ...   |
SHORT    |   STOCK  |   INTL   |     BOA     |   ...   |   ...   |
LONG     |   BOND   |    US    |   GOLDMAN   |   ...   |   ...   |
SHORT    |   BOND   |    US    |     BOA     |   ...   |   ...   |
MEDIUM   |   BOND   |   INTL   |     BOA     |   ...   |   ...   |
LONG     |   STOCK  |   INTL   |  JP MORGAN  |   ...   |   ...   |
MEDIUM   |   BOND   |   INTL   |   GOLDMAN   |   ...   |   ...   |
SHORT    |   BOND   |    US    |   GOLDMAN   |   ...   |   ...   |
MEDIUM   |   BOND   |    US    |   GOLDMAN   |   ...   |   ...   |
MEDIUM   |   STOCK  |   INTL   |   GOLDMAN   |   ...   |   ...   |


EDIT: Domain knowledge, want to find out how similar each row was to another. So we would have some sort of key/identifier, and we would only want to match two of them. I guess we can assign some sort of coded rating to each row? But if we are just comparing two specific rows, then how would we go about it?

EDIT: I believe this would be some sort of unsupervised learning. Hence, the dependent variable would not necessarily be categorical. The independent ones WOULD be.

• Can you show us some data and explain little bit more by what you mean with degree of separation/similarity between rows''? – Vladislavs Dovgalecs Apr 1 '15 at 16:32
• Hi. Added it. Please let me know if it helps. Thanks. – vdiddy Apr 1 '15 at 16:47
• Thanks for the data. Would you like to classify the rows in some predefined classes (assumes you have labels) or cluster the data? – Vladislavs Dovgalecs Apr 1 '15 at 16:51
• Can you also provide some domain knowledge, e.g. how would you read this data and classify/cluster it? How would you group a handful of rows? – Vladislavs Dovgalecs Apr 1 '15 at 17:01
• So basically we want to see how "similar" each of the rows are. I mean we could just do percentages (3/5 match so it's 60%), etc. but it doesn't seem to add much technical weight. – vdiddy Apr 1 '15 at 17:18