Hi Brigid, as.numeric() extracts the index of the factor level, which is the way R handles the likelihood that a factor is not actually numeric. Try:
> as.numeric(as.character(abc[1])) [1] 2 and see also ?factor particularly the section on the interpretation of a factor. Sarah On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Brigid Mooney <bkmoo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sorry, I'm sure I'm not using the appropriate vocab here, which is > undoubtedly why I can't seem to find a fix to this (hopefully very > easy) problem. > > Suppose you have a factor > > abc <- factor(c(2,2,3,4,7,7)) > > And you want to know what the number in the nth spot in that would be > > abc[1] > [1] 2 > Levels: 2 3 4 7 > > shows the correct label of the first element - but if I want to pull > out the numeric value of that label, I thought... > > as.numeric(abc[1]) > > but that gives > [1] 1 > > which is the position of the label in the levels vector of the factor. > > Ideas? > > Thanks! > > ______________________________________________ > 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. -- Sarah Goslee http://www.stringpage.com http://www.sarahgoslee.com 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.
