[R] Converting scraped data

[Simon Kiss]

Dear Colleagues,
I used this code to scrape data from the URL conatined within.  This  
code should be reproducible.

require("XML")
library(XML)
theurl <- "http://www.queensu.ca/cora/_trends/mip_2006.htm"
tables <- readHTMLTable(theurl)
n.rows <- unlist(lapply(tables, function(t) dim(t)[1]))
class(tables)
test<-data.frame(tables, stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
test[16,c(2:5)]
as.numeric(test[16,c(2:5)])
quartz()
plot(c(1:4), test[15, c(2:5)])

calling the values from the row of interest using test[16, c(2:5)] can  
bring them up as represented on the screen, plotting them or coercing  
them to numeric changes the values and in a way that doesn't make  
sense to me. My intuitino is that there is something going on with the  
way the characters are coded or classed when they're scraped into R.   
I've looked around the help files for converting from character to  
numeric but can't find a solution.

I also tried this:

as.numeric(as.character(test[16,c(2:5)] and that also changed the  
values from what they originally were.

I'm grateful for any suggestions.
Yours, Simon Kiss



*********************************
Simon J. Kiss, PhD
Assistant Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
73 George Street
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
N3T 2C9
Cell: +1 519 761 7606