R: numeric vector becoming non-numeric after cbind of dates
binding, date, numeric, r
Solution
The reason is that `cbind` returns a matrix, and a matrix can only hold one data type. You could use a `data.frame` instead:
n <- 1:10
b <- LETTERS[1:10]
m <- cbind(n,b)
str(m)
chr [1:10, 1:2] "1" "2" "3" "4" "5" "6" "7" "8" "9" ...
- attr(*, "dimnames")=List of 2
..$ : NULL
..$ : chr [1:2] "n" "b"
d <- data.frame(n,b)
str(d)
'data.frame': 10 obs. of 2 variables:
$ n: int 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
$ b: Factor w/ 10 levels "A","B","C","D",..: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Problem
I have a numeric vector (future_prices) in my case. I use a date vector from another vector (here: pred_commodity_prices$futuredays) to create numbers for the months. After that I use cbind to bind the months to the numeric vector. However, was happened is that the numeric vector become non-numeric. Do you know how what the reason for this is? When I use as.numeric(future_prices) I get strange values. What could be an alternative? Thanks ``` head(future_prices) pred_peak_month_3a pred_peak_quarter_3a 1 68.33907 62.37888 2 68.08553 62.32658 is.numeric(future_prices) [1] TRUE > month = format(as.POSIXlt.date(pred_commodity_prices$futuredays), "%m") > future_prices <- cbind (future_prices, month) > head(future_prices) pred_peak_month_3a pred_peak_quarter_3a month 1 "68.3390747063745" "62.3788824938719" "01" is.numeric(future_prices) [1] FALSE ```