[R] / Operator not meaningful for factors

[David Winsemius]

On May 3, 2010, at 7:21 PM, vincent.deluard wrote:

>
> Hi John,
>
> Thanks for responding so quickly.
>
> So I tried:
>
> Test2[1:3,1:3])
>
> 'data.frame':   3 obs. of  3 variables:
>
> $ Date      : Factor w/ 2480 levels "A UN Equity",..: 1033 2396 613
>
> $ X4.20.2010: Factor w/ 1994 levels "0.24","0.33",..: 953 497 1814
>
> $ X4.19.2010: Factor w/ 1957 levels "0.24","0.33",..: 933 486 1779
>
>
>
> But I am not sure how to interpret it.

The information is now in the levels vector.

>
>
>
> The stringAsFactors = False option did not work either.

False <> FALSE

--  
David.


>
>
>
>> Test2 <- read.table('Test2.csv', sep=",", header=TRUE,  
>> stringAsFactors=FALSE)
>
> Error in read.table("Test2.csv", sep = ",", header = TRUE,  
> stringAsFactors = FALSE) :
>
>  unused argument(s) (stringAsFactors = FALSE)
>
>
>
> If you want to look at it, I attach a section of my data.
>
>
>
> Right now if I type:
>
>> Test2[2,2]+1
>
> Which should return 19.72
>

Not if it's a factor.

>
>
> I get
>
> [1] NA
>
> Warning message:
>
> In Ops.factor(Test2[2, 2], 1) : + not meaningful for factors
>
>
>
> Your help is SO appreciated!
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------
>
> Vincent Deluard
>
> <mailto:Vincent.Deluard at TrimTabs.com> Vincent.Deluard at TrimTabs.com
>
> Global Equity Strategist, CFA Charter Award Pending
>
> TrimTabs Investment Research
>
> 40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
>
> New York, NY 10005
>
> Phone: (+1) 646-512-5616
>
>
>
> From: John Kane-2 [via R] [mailto:ml-node+2124731-1168690456-90534 at n4.nabble.com 
> ]
> Sent: Monday, May 03, 2010 6:51 PM
> To: vincent.deluard
> Subject: Re: / Operator not meaningful for factors
>
>
>
> I think that you are correct.  R has the annoying habit of  
> converting character data to factors when you don't want it
> to while it is importing data.  This is because the in the option  
> "stringsAsFactors" is set to TRUE for some weird
> historical reasons.
>
> Try the command str(insert name of data) and see what happens.  It  
> should show you which columns of data are being
> treated as factors.
>
> You can convert the back to character or to numeric.  See the FAQ  
> Part 7 "How do I convert factors to numeric? " or you
> can use the String as options command in the read.table to FALSE
>
> Something like this should work, I think, but it's not tested
> read.table("C:/rdata/trees.csv", stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On Mon, 5/3/10, vincent.deluard <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>
>> From: vincent.deluard <[hidden email]>
>> Subject: Re: [R] / Operator not meaningful for factors
>> To: [hidden email]
>> Received: Monday, May 3, 2010, 6:22 PM
>>
>> Hi there,
>>
>> This will sound very stupid because I just started using R
>> but I see you had
>> similar problems.
>>
>> I just loaded a very large dataset (2950*6602) from csv
>> into R. The format
>> is ticker=row, date=column.
>> Every time I want to compute basic operations, R returns
>> "In Ops.factor: not
>> meaningful for factors"
>>
>> I believe it is because R does not read the data as numbers
>> but I am not
>> sure. Can anybody help?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> -- 
>> View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Operator-not-meaningful-for-factors-tp791563p2124697.html
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>>
>> ______________________________________________
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>>
>
>
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David Winsemius, MD
West Hartford, CT