[R] Character coerced to factor and I cannot get it back

[John Kane]

Thanks Stephen and Gabor.  

It works like a charm both ways.  It took me a minute
or two to find the global command but  I definately
like it :)  Now to remember to change it on the USB
installation too.  

Any idea what the rationale was for setting the option
to TRUE?  I can see advantages either way but
personally I like to set my factors myself and for a
newbie it is disconcerting to see my characters refuse
to stay that way.

--- Stephen Tucker <brown_emu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> You can also set this option globally with
> options(stringsAsFactors = TRUE)
> 
> I believe this was added in R 2.4.0.
> 

> --- Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Try this:
> > 
> > DF <- data.frame(let = letters[1:3], num = 1:3,
> stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
> > str(DF)
> > 
> > 
> > On 4/19/07, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- Tyler Smith <tyler.smith at mail.mcgill.ca>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I really need to sit down with the manual and
> sort
> > > > factors and classes
> > > > properly. In your case, I think the problem
> has
> > > > something to do with
> > > > the way a list behaves?  I'm not sure, but if
> you
> > > > convert your list to
> > > > a dataframe it seems to work ok:
> > > >
> > > > > dd3 <- as.data.frame(dd1)
> > > > > typeof(dd3$st)
> > > > [1] "integer"
> > > > > class(dd3$st)
> > > > [1] "factor"
> > > > > dd3$st <- as.character(dd3$st)
> > > > > typeof(dd3$st)
> > > > [1] "character"
> > > > > class(dd3$st)
> > > > [1] "character"
> > > >
> > > > HTH,
> > > >
> > > > Tyler
> > >
> > > Seems to work nicely. I had forgotten about
> > > 'as.data.frame.
> > >
> > > I originally thought that it might be a list
> problem
> > > too but I don't think so. I set up the example
> as a
> > > list since that is the way my real data is being
> > > imported from csv. However after my original
> posting I
> > > went back and tried it with just a dataframe and
> I'm
> > > getting the same results. See below.
> > >
> > > I even shut down R , reloaded it and detached
> the two
> > > extra packages I usually load. Everything is
> working
> > > fine but I am doing some things with factors
> that I
> > > have never done before and this just makes me a
> bit
> > > paranoid.
> > >
> > > Thanks very much for the help.
> > >
> > >
> > > EXAMPLE
> > > dd  <- data.frame(aa <- 1:4, bb <- 
> letters[1:4],
> > >         cc <- c(12345, 123456, 45678, 456789))
> > >
> > > id  <-  as.character(dd[,3]) ; id
> > >
> > > st  <- substring(id, 1,nchar(id)-4 ) ; st
> > > typeof (st)  ; class(st)
> > >
> > > dd1  <-  cbind(dd, st)
> > >    names(dd1)  <- c("aa","bb","cc","st")
> > >    dd1
> > >    typeof(dd1$st); class(dd1$st)
> > >
> > > dd2  <-  cbind(dd, as.character(st))
> > >    names(dd2)  <- c("aa","bb","cc","st")
> > >    dd2
> > >    typeof(dd2$st) ;   class(dd2$st)
> > >
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
> reproducible code.
> > >
> > 
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
> reproducible code.
> > 
> 
> 
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