[BioC] extracting a column as a vector.

[priya [guest]]

I have a matrix in the following way :

probes p1 p2 p3 p4 p5

244971 5  6  7  8  9
244972 8  7  9  7  8
244973 4  3  2  6  7
244973 8  5  3  6  8

 I would like to extract only the probe names and tried this:
 degtl - original matrix( containing 22810 entries)
 

ids <- degtl[,1]

and I got 
head(ids)
[1] 244941_at   244959_s_at 244974_at   245009_at   245024_at   245028_at  
22810 Levels: 244901_at 244902_at 244903_at 244904_at 244905_at 244906_at 244907_at 244908_at ... AFFX-TrpnX-M_at.

I would like to extract the probe names as a vector in  the following form :

ids<- c("244971","244972","244973",......) for all 22810 levels.Iam unable to do it and always end up with a list. 

    

 -- output of sessionInfo(): 

R version 2.15
Linux

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