This is my reproducible example df<-structure(list(IDANT = c(37837L, 37838L, 37839L, 37840L, 37841L, 37842L, 37843L, 40720L, 40721L, 40722L), N_TX = c(6L, 6L, 6L, 4L, 1L, 1L, 1L, 2L, 2L, 1L), TILT = c(0L, 0L, 0L, 0L, 6L, 6L, 6L, 0L, 0L, 0L), DIREZIONE = c(50L, 220L, 110L, 50L, 220L, 110L, 50L, 170L, 70L, 270L), DATA_INI = structure(c(2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L), .Label = c("20/10/2004", "29/08/2002" ), class = "factor"), POT_TX = structure(c(4L, 4L, 4L, 3L, 2L, 2L, 2L, 1L, 1L, 1L), .Label = c("10", "11,5", "4", "8"), class = "factor")), .Names = c("IDANT", "N_TX", "TILT", "DIREZIONE", "DATA_INI", "POT_TX"), row.names = c(NA, 10L), class = "data.frame")
The data frame “df” it’s a “simplified snapshot” from an oracle table imported via odbc (by using the package RODBC) ; now, the problem with the data frame “df” is that one variable “POT_TX” have the decimal separator formatted with comma instead of dot; so I’m in the need to reformat the variable from factor to numeric type to perform some useful calculations this is my code I worked so far #function to change comma to dot myfun <- function(x) {sub(",",".",x)} #apply the function to all variables new <- apply(df, 2, myfun ) newdf <- data.frame(apply(new, 2, as.numeric)) str(newdf) #apply the function to one variables var<-as.numeric(sapply(df[,6], FUN=myfun)) df$POT_TX<-var str(df) my questions: 1. is it possible to use the more convenient function “apply” with reference to just some variables and not all of them? I’ve been reading on the help that “Where X has named dimnames, it can be a character vector selecting dimension names.”, what does exactly means that? 2. do you know some more convenient methods to perform comma to dot substitution in just some selected variables of a data frame? To note that the desired final result is again a dataframe 3. do you know any workaround to set the decimal delimiter for a variable (field) “at the early steps” when connecting via odbc and then querying to the table? For these “early steps” I’ve been using something like: library(RODBC) con<-odbcConnect("dsn", uid="user", pwd="password") df<-sqlQuery(con, "select * from table.name;") thank you all for the eventual support -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/decimal-separator-from-comma-to-dot-tp4673414.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________ 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.