How to create a variable of rownames?

r

Solution

Make a new column of based on the `rownames` of your dataset:

# Read in your example data
DF = read.table(header=TRUE, text=" returns
2010-1-4 -0.015933327
2010-1-11 -0.015042868
2010-1-18 0.005350297
2010-1-25 -0.049324703
2010-2-1 -0.052674121")
DF
#                returns
# 2010-1-4  -0.015933327
# 2010-1-11 -0.015042868
# 2010-1-18  0.005350297
# 2010-1-25 -0.049324703
# 2010-2-1  -0.052674121

# Create a `date` variable
DF$date = rownames(DF)
# Reset the `rownames` of your original data
rownames(DF) = NULL
# Format the `date` variable properly
DF$date = strptime(DF$date, "%Y-%m-%d")
DF
#        returns       date
# 1 -0.015933327 2010-01-04
# 2 -0.015042868 2010-01-11
# 3  0.005350297 2010-01-18
# 4 -0.049324703 2010-01-25
# 5 -0.052674121 2010-02-01

Problem

I have an object in R that looks like this: ``` returns 2010-1-4 -0.015933327 2010-1-11 -0.015042868 2010-1-18 0.005350297 2010-1-25 -0.049324703 2010-2-1 -0.052674121 ``` I want to make it into: ``` date returns 1 2010-01-04 -0.0159333272 2 2010-01-11 -0.0150428685 3 2010-01-18 0.0053502965 4 2010-01-25 -0.0493247026 5 2010-02-01 -0.0526741206 ``` How can I do this?

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