Also when reading a CSV file, if you do not want characters columns converted to factors, use 'as.is = TRUE' as one of the parameters. If you have a column that is a factor, to convert it to numeric you have to do the following:
as.numeric(as.character(factorColumn)) notice that you have to convert it to character first; otherwise you will get the numeric value of the factor which is probably not what you want. On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Sarah Goslee <sarah.gos...@gmail.com> wrote: > Most likely there's something amiss in your csv file: R won't convert > numeric data to factors unless there are non-numeric characters > included. > > First check your csv file for errors. If that doesn't solve your > problem, please provide a reproducible example. > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example > > Sarah > > On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 10:59 AM, EcoFranc <rob...@gmx.de> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> maybe somebody would be kind enough to help a bloody and unprofessional >> beginner like me (and I hope I did not overlook the answer to my question on >> the website). I've imported a csv data frame into R, but I can't run a >> regression because R interprets 4 out of 5 variables as factors (rather than >> numeric vectors). I tried the as.numeric() command, but R says it is invalid >> to change the storage mode of a factor. Is there any way to change the mode >> of a factor into numeric. >> >> I am very grateful for help. Thank you very much, Robert. >> >> > > > -- > Sarah Goslee > http://www.functionaldiversity.org > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org 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. -- Jim Holtman Data Munger Guru What is the problem that you are trying to solve? Tell me what you want to do, not how you want to do it. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org 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.
