The help page describes the first argument x as a numeric... it is not designed to accept character, so the fact that you get anything even close to right is just a bonus.
As the doctor says, "if it hurts, don't do that". ave( rep( 1, length( v ), v, FUN=seq_along ) -- Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity. On October 31, 2016 3:29:01 PM PDT, "Nordlund, Dan (DSHS/RDA)" <nord...@dshs.wa.gov> wrote: >Given the following R statements > >v <- c('a', 'a', 'a', 'b', 'b', 'b', 'c', 'c', 'c', 'c') >ave(v, list(v), FUN=seq_along) > [1] "1" "2" "3" "1" "2" "3" "1" "2" "3" "4" > >I was expecting to get a numeric vector back. I apparently have missed >something in the documentation. If vector v is character, then the >numeric sequence is converted to character before returning. I can >work around by doing something like > >ave(seq_along(v), list(v), FUN=seq_along) > [1] 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 > >Is the work around the best way to go, or have I missed an option in >the documentation? > > >Thanks, > >Dan > >Daniel Nordlund, PhD >Research and Data Analysis Division >Services & Enterprise Support Administration >Washington State Department of Social and Health Services > >______________________________________________ >R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see >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. ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.