[R] Simple numeric "as.is" question

[Thomas Petzoldt]

Janet Gannon wrote:

> I am reading a list of numbers from my clipboard, and have been 
> successful, except I can't make a histogram as R doesn't recognize my 
> variable as numeric.  I know I need to use "as.is", but the specifics 
> escape me.
> I have used x<-read.table("clipboard", header=F) to import from a txt 

In normal circumstances, your example works, but sometimes you need 
special options, e.g sep="\t" if you have missing values or dec="," in 
countries with comma as decimal delimiter. Another possibility is, that 
read.table has converted your data into factors, then convert them back, 
  via:

x$V1 <- as.numeric(as.character(x$V1))

etc...

For more options please read the R Data Import/Export manual.

Thomas