converting the string columns in a data.frame to factors?

[John Edwards]

Dear All,

I'm not sure if I understand the parameter stringsAsFactors correctly. I'm
trying to convert the string columns in aframe1 to factors. But it
seems stringsAsFactors=T in as.data.frame() doesn't do anything. Could
anybody let know what is the correct way to converting strings to factors?

> aframe1=data.frame(x=LETTERS[1:10], y=LETTERS[1:10], stringsAsFactors=F)
> aframe2=as.data.frame(aframe1, stringsAsFactors=T)
>
> str(aframe1)
'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
 $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
> str(aframe2)
'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
 $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>

Thanks,
John

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[Ivan Calandra]

Hi John,

Use factor():
aframe2$x <- factor(aframe2$x)

Or, for all columns at once (there might be an easier solution):
aframe2 <- as.data.frame(lapply(aframe1, factor))

see ?factor

HTH,
Ivan

Le 2/28/2011 18:13, John Edwards a écrit :

> Dear All,
>
> I'm not sure if I understand the parameter stringsAsFactors correctly. I'm
> trying to convert the string columns in aframe1 to factors. But it
> seems stringsAsFactors=T in as.data.frame() doesn't do anything. Could
> anybody let know what is the correct way to converting strings to factors?
>
>> aframe1=data.frame(x=LETTERS[1:10], y=LETTERS[1:10], stringsAsFactors=F)
>> aframe2=as.data.frame(aframe1, stringsAsFactors=T)
>>
>> str(aframe1)
> 'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
>   $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>   $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>> str(aframe2)
> 'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
>   $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>   $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
> Thanks,
> John
>
> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] 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.
>

--
Ivan CALANDRA
PhD Student
University of Hamburg
Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum
Abt. Säugetiere
Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
D-20146 Hamburg, GERMANY
[phone]
[hidden email]

**********
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[Erik Iverson-3]

John,

as.data.frame is a generic function that will call different methods
depending on what class of object you pass to it.  The different
methods may have different arguments that they expect or honor.

The stringsAsFactors parameter is only used in certain methods of
as.data.frame.  When you pass an actual data.frame to that function,
stringsAsFactors is not used.  It looks like it is only used for
methods for character and matrix objects.

So, to do what you want:

aframe1 <- data.frame(x = LETTERS[1:10],
                       y = LETTERS[1:10],
                       z = 1:10,
                       stringsAsFactors = FALSE)

ind <- sapply(aframe1, is.character)
aframe1[ind] <- lapply(aframe1[ind], factor)

John Edwards wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I'm not sure if I understand the parameter stringsAsFactors correctly. I'm
> trying to convert the string columns in aframe1 to factors. But it
> seems stringsAsFactors=T in as.data.frame() doesn't do anything. Could
> anybody let know what is the correct way to converting strings to factors?
>
>> aframe1=data.frame(x=LETTERS[1:10], y=LETTERS[1:10], stringsAsFactors=F)
>> aframe2=as.data.frame(aframe1, stringsAsFactors=T)
>>
>> str(aframe1)
> 'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
>  $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>  $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>> str(aframe2)
> 'data.frame': 10 obs. of  2 variables:
>  $ x: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>  $ y: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...
>
> Thanks,
> John
>
> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> [hidden email] 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.

______________________________________________
[hidden email] 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.