[R] Converting ID Numbers to Unique ID Number

First off, let me apologize for the elementary question. I'm obviously a novice. Here's a stripped version of my problem. March foreign id = 1234, my id = 1 foreign id = 1235, my id = 2 foreign id = 1236, my id = 3 So we are adding new people for April, and things don't necessarily come in order

[R] Factors? I think?

First of all, let me apologize, as this is probably an absurdly basic question. I did search before asking, but perhaps my ineptitude didn't allow me to apply what I read to what I'm doing. Totally new to R, and haven't done any code in any language in a long time. Basically I've got categories. T