How about this?
scs2<-data.frame(lapply(scs2, factor))
________________________________
From: "Lopez, Dan" <lopez...@llnl.gov>
To: "R help (r-help@r-project.org)" <r-help@r-project.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 7:09 PM
Subject: [R] Having trouble converting a dataframe of character vectors to
factors
R Experts,
I have a dataframe made up of character vectors--these are results from survey
questions. I need to convert them to factors.
I tried the following which did not work:
scs2<-sapply(scs2,as.factor)
also this didn't work:
scs2<-sapply(scs2,function(x) as.factor(x))
After doing either of above I end up with
>str(scs2)
chr [1:10, 1:10] "very important" "very important" "very important" "very
important" ...
- attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2
..$ : NULL
..$ : chr [1:10] "Q1_1" "Q1_2" "Q1_3" "Q1_4" ...
>class(scs2)
"matrix"
But when I do it one at a time it works:
scs2$Q1_1<-as.factor(scs2$Q1_1)
scs2$Q1_2<- as.factor(scs2$Q1_2)
What am I doing wrong? How do I accomplish this with sapply or similar
function?
Data for reproducibility:
scs2<-structure(list(Q1_1 = c("very important", "very important", "very
important",
"very important", "very important", "very important", "very important",
"somewhat important", "important", "very important"), Q1_2 = c("important",
"somewhat important", "very important", "important", "important",
"very important", "somewhat important", "somewhat important",
"very important", "very important"), Q1_3 = c("very important",
"important", "very important", "very important", "important",
"very important", "very important", "somewhat important", "not important",
"important"), Q1_4 = c("very important", "important", "very important",
"very important", "important", "important", "important", "very important",
"somewhat important", "important"), Q1_5 = c("very important",
"not important", "important", "very important", "not important",
"important", "somewhat important", "important", "somewhat important",
"not important"), Q1_6 = c("very important", "not important",
"important", "very important", "somewhat important", "very important",
"very important", "very important", "important", "important"),
Q1_7 = c("very important", "somewhat important", "important",
"somewhat important", "important", "important", "very important",
"very important", "somewhat important", "not important"),
Q2 = c("Somewhat", "Very Much", "Somewhat", "Very Much",
"Very Much", "Very Much", "Very Much", "Very Much", "Very Much",
"Very Much"), Q3 = c("yes", "yes", "yes", "yes", "yes", "yes",
"yes", "yes", "yes", "yes"), Q4 = c("None", "None", "None",
"None", "Confirmed Field of Study", "Confirmed Field of Study",
"Confirmed Field of Study", "None", "None", "None")), .Names = c("Q1_1",
"Q1_2", "Q1_3", "Q1_4", "Q1_5", "Q1_6", "Q1_7", "Q2", "Q3", "Q4"
), row.names = c(78L, 46L, 80L, 196L, 188L, 197L, 39L, 195L,
172L, 110L), class = "data.frame")
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________
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.
[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
______________________________________________
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.
