Dear R community,
> #I'm using scan() to extract a real number from a file with a complex structure: 156689504.378.
> #My problem is that the number is coerced into an integer.  
> #Do you have any ideas for me on how to "uncoerce"?  Here is my code and the output:
> #I'm using R version 2.15.0 (2012-03-30)
> 
> net3 <- patient.net3 <- scan("C:/temp/samplePHIoutput.txt", skip=23, what=list(character(0), character(0), numeric(0)))
Read 1 record
> net3[3]
[[1]]
[1] 156689504

> 
> #I need the full number in net[3] and I need the output in vector form, so I used unlist().
> workfile <- unlist(net3)
> 
> workfile[3]
[1] "156689504.378"
> 
> #Just checking character length because I was curious.
> nchar(workfile[3])
[1] 13
> 
> #convert character string to a number. 
> number <- as.numeric(workfile[3])
> 
> mode(number)
[1] "numeric"
> nchar(number)
[1] 13
> number
[1] 156689504
> 
> 
> #Notice that my original number is Real.   I read that the function as.numeric() coerces the output to integer. 
> #2 questions:
> #  1) How can I uncoerce it?
> #  2) Why does nchar() still see 13 characters but output only 9?

Thank you.
-Nicky

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