Did you actually test that purported solution? I get NA's, which is not surprising to me since the levels of chickwts$feed are character valued. 

When I try as.numeric(chickwts$feed) I get the numeric values that I believe are being requested. 

The FAQ regarding conversion from an inadvertent input of a numeric as a factor implicitly assumes that the original values were digits rather than alpha. 

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#How-do-I-convert-factors-to-numeric_003f 

-- 
David Winsemius 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Douglas Federman" <Douglas.Federman@utoledo.edu> 
To: "schung" <stephanie.chung@gmail.com>, r-help@r-project.org 
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2009 10:49:54 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
Subject: Re: [R] changing variables in a dataset 

you could use 

chickwts$feed<- as.numeric(levels(chickwts$feed))[as.integer(chickwts$feed)] 

I got this by searching archives of old messages. I can't recall why the simpler as.numeric(chickwts$feed) is not an appropriate all around solution. 

-- 
"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities." - Dr. Suess 

________________________________ 

From: r-help-bounces@r-project.org on behalf of schung 
Sent: Wed 5/6/2009 10:55 AM 
To: r-help@r-project.org 
Subject: [R] changing variables in a dataset 




Hi! I just quasi-learned how to use R and I'm trying to change the feed from 
horsebean, linseed, etc to 1, 2, 3, etc 

The dataset I'm practicing on is pre-loaded in R 

data(chickwts) 
chickwts 

Any help is much appreciated!! 

Thank you!! 
-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/changing-variables-in-a-dataset-tp23407765p23407765.html 
Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. 

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