[R] mystery "158"

[Glen Forister]

This is a simple problem, but a mystery to me.
I'm trying to grab $Family "Scelionidae" from one dataframe and put it into
another dataframe occupied with NA in $Family.  The result is a "158" ends
up there instead of Scelionidae.
Simply put      fam$Family[1] <- least$Family[1]

If I have made a mistake here, can somebody point it out.  I've included
the simple steps I got there showing the structure and heads of the objects.
=====  add a col of NA  = Family
> least$Family <- NA; str(least)
'data.frame':    243 obs. of  6 variables:
 $ sp    : int  1 3 5 6 8 11 13 15 18 19 ...
 $ Fallon: int  14 11 109 6 1 44 70 23 4 100 ...
 $ Dimen : int  10 13 52 2 1 19 18 0 2 116 ...
 $ Farm  : int  6 2 3 0 0 2 0 1 2 1 ...
 $ Sums  : int  30 26 164 8 2 65 88 24 8 217 ...
 $ Family: logi  NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
>head(least,2)
  sp Fallon Dimen Farm Sums Family
1  1     14    10    6   30     NA
3  3     11    13    2   26     NA
>
> #next change the property logi to char
> least$Family <- as.character(least$Family)
> str(least)
'data.frame':    243 obs. of  6 variables:
 $ sp    : int  1 3 5 6 8 11 13 15 18 19 ...
 $ Fallon: int  14 11 109 6 1 44 70 23 4 100 ...
 $ Dimen : int  10 13 52 2 1 19 18 0 2 116 ...
 $ Farm  : int  6 2 3 0 0 2 0 1 2 1 ...
 $ Sums  : int  30 26 164 8 2 65 88 24 8 217 ...
 $ Family: chr  NA NA NA NA ...
>#  This is where I will grab the info to put into the above.
> head(fam,2)
         Family Sp
1   Scelionidae  1
2         Aphid  2
>#  This shows the id of my object I want to copy
> fam$Family[1]
[1] Scelionidae
180 Levels:  ? ? = 97 ? immature ? sp sample ?? ???? 1 2 3 ... wolf?
>
># This shows me copying Scelionidae into dataframe least
> least$Family[1] <- fam$Family[1]
>
>#    Here is where I don't get what I expect, but 158
>str(least);
'data.frame':    243 obs. of  6 variables:
 $ sp    : int  1 3 5 6 8 11 13 15 18 19 ...
 $ Fallon: int  14 11 109 6 1 44 70 23 4 100 ...
 $ Dimen : int  10 13 52 2 1 19 18 0 2 116 ...
 $ Farm  : int  6 2 3 0 0 2 0 1 2 1 ...
 $ Sums  : int  30 26 164 8 2 65 88 24 8 217 ...
 $ Family: chr  "158" NA NA NA ...
>head(least, 1)
  sp Fallon Dimen Farm Sums Family
1  1     14     10        6       30    158
>
>#    Showing what I wanted to copy still exists.
> fam$Family[1]
[1] Scelionidae
180 Levels:  ? ? = 97 ? immature ? sp sample ?? ???? 1 2 3 ... wolf?

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