[Rd] For integer vectors, `as(x, "numeric")` has no effect.
Josh O'Brien
joshmobrien at gmail.com
Fri Dec 4 18:56:13 CET 2015
Here's the surprising behavior:
x <- 1L
xx <- as(x, "numeric")
class(xx)
## [1] "integer"
It occurs because the call to `as(x, "numeric")` dispatches the coerce
S4 method for the signature `c("integer", "numeric")`, whose body is
copied in below.
function (from, to = "numeric", strict = TRUE)
if (strict) {
class(from) <- "numeric"
from
} else from
This in turn does nothing, even when strict=TRUE, because that
assignment to class "numeric" has no effect:
x <- 10L
class(x) <- "numeric"
class(x)
[1] "integer"
Is this the desired behavior for `as(x, "numeric")`?
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