Non character argument in R string split function (strsplit)

Question

This works

x <- "0.466:1.187:2.216:1.196"
y <- as.numeric(unlist(strsplit(x, ":")))

Values of blat$LRwAvg all look like X above but this doesn't work

for (i in 1:50){
  y <- as.numeric(unlist(strsplit(blat$LRwAvg[i], "\\:")))
  blat$meanLRwAvg[i]=mean(y)
}

Because of:

Error in strsplit(blat$LRwAvg[i], "\:") : non-character argument

It doesn't matter if I have one, two or null backslashes.

What's my problem? (Not generally, I mean in this special task, technically)

What is the output of `class(blat$LRwAvg)`, and can you give us some data from `blat$LRwAvg` — alexwhan, Mar 15 '13 at 10:32
@AWE It is an error type. coerce the argument to character , `as.character(blat$LRwAvg)` — agstudy, Mar 15 '13 at 10:36
@alexwhan I noticed that so deleted my comment, but not quickly enough :$. It looks like its a problem with factors. So coerce to character as @agstudy suggests, or use `stringsAsFactors=FALSE` when creating the data.frame. — James, Mar 15 '13 at 10:44
@alexwhan, class(blat$LRwAvg) = factor, @agstudy, `blat$LRwAvg <- as.character(blat$LRwAvg)` before loop fixed it! — AWE, Mar 15 '13 at 10:46
Isn't it more appropriate that agstudy answers it so I can accept? — AWE, Mar 15 '13 at 10:51
@AWE it doesn't matter. It is even encouraged to answer his own question. So answer and accept it please. — agstudy, Mar 15 '13 at 10:54

score 37 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 15 '13 at 11:07

As agstudy implied blat$LRwAvg <- as.character(blat$LRwAvg) before loop fixed it

blat$meanLRwAvg <- blat$gtFrqAvg #or some other variable in data frame with equal length
blat$LRwAvg <- as.character(blat$LRwAvg)
for (i in 1:50){
  y <- as.numeric(unlist(strsplit(blat$LRwAvg[i], "\\:")))
  blat$meanLRwAvg[i]=mean(y)
}

Non character argument in R string split function (strsplit)

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