[R] as.data.frame(cbind()) transforming numeric to factor?

[Tom Boonen]

Dear List,

why does as.data.frame(cbind()) transform numeric variables to
factors, once one of the other variablesused is a character vector?

#
x.1 <- rnorm(10)
x.2 <- c(rep("Test",10))
Foo <- as.data.frame(cbind(x.1))
is.factor(Foo$x.1)

Foo <- as.data.frame(cbind(x.1,x.2))
is.factor(Foo$x.1)
#

I assume there is a good reason for this, can somebody explain? Thanks.

Best,
Tom