If you read the data as posted in your email with read.csv, you probably got this:
> s1 <- read.csv(textConnection("treat absorb + 0 1.8052 + 0.5 2.07075 + 1.0 2.2345")) > closeAllConnections() > s1 treat...absorb 1 0 1.8052 2 0.5 2.07075 3 1.0 2.2345 > str(s1) 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 1 variable: $ treat...absorb: Factor w/ 3 levels "0 1.8052",..: 1 2 3 > Do an str(s1) on your object to see what it say. You data did not have a comma as a separator and your: > sapply(s1, class) treat.absorb "factor" did show a funny column name (treat.absorb), so check your data and post back what the str said about it. What you probably wanted to do with the data is the following: > s1 <- read.table(textConnection("treat absorb + 0 1.8052 + 0.5 2.07075 + 1.0 2.2345"), header = TRUE) > closeAllConnections() > str(s1) 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 2 variables: $ treat : num 0 0.5 1 $ absorb: num 1.81 2.07 2.23 > s1 treat absorb 1 0.0 1.80520 2 0.5 2.07075 3 1.0 2.23450 > now you probably have the right structure to process. On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 9:53 PM, andreas <andreasse...@web.de> wrote: > > I have yet another novice 'converting factors to numeric problem'. > > The problem is as described by others: read data (using read.csv) in from > excel.csv file and it turns out to be a factor in R. The data in execl only > has 4 rows: > > treat absorb > 0 1.8052 > 0.5 2.07075 > 1.0 2.2345 > > I read the object in as s1 and generated the following r-code and output > trying a couple of things: > > > > as.numeric(as.character(s1)) > [1] NA > Warning: >> sapply(s1, class) > treat.absorb > "factor" > >> as.numeric(as.character(s1)) > [1] NA > Warining: > NAs produced by conversion > >> as.numeric(as.character(s1$absorb)) > numeric(0) > >> s1$absorb <- as.numeric(as.character(s1$absorb)) > Error in `$<-.data.frame`(`*tmp*`, "absorb", value = numeric(0)) : > replacement has 0 rows, data has 3 > > thanks for your consideration > > Andreas > -- > View this message in context: > http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/convert-factor-data-to-numeric-tp1012855p2996406.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. > -- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem that you are trying to solve? ______________________________________________ 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.