Hi there!

I have huge datafile of 600 columns 360 samples:

data <- read.table("small.txt", header = TRUE, sep = "\t", dec = ".", 
row.names=1)

The txt.file (compiled with excel) is showing me only numbers, however R 
gives me the structure of ANY column as "factor".

When i try "stringsAsFactors=FALSE" in the read command, the structure 
of the dataset becomes "character."

When i try as.numeric(data), i get

Error: (list) object cannot be coerced to type 'double'


even, if i try to subset columns with [].


When i try as.numeric on single columns with $, i am successful, but the numbers dont make any sense at all, as the factors are not converted by their levels:


Factor w/ 358 levels "0,123111694",..: 11 14 50 12 38 44 13 76 31 30


becomes


num  11 14 50 12 38 44 13 76 31 30


whereas i would need the levels, though!


I suspect excel to mess up the "save as tab-delimited text", but the text file seems fine with me on surface (i dont know how the numbers are stored  internally). I just see correct numbers, also the View command
yields the correct content.



Anyone knows help? Its pretty annoying.



Thank you!

-- 
Tim Richter-Heitmann


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