This method of recoding enables you to assign a value of the new variable for each particular value of the old variable.
You are presented with a sorted list of the values of the old variable (without duplicates), and you can specify a value of the new variable to correspond to each one.
Thus, for example, if the old variable had the discrete values 1-6, you could easily use this method to group values 1, 2, and 5 together and values 3, 4, and 6 together.