Create a character variable with data.frame function

Question

Using the data.frame function in R, I am creating an example dataset. However, the vectors with strings are converted to a factor column.

How can I make vectors with strings (e.g. var1) become character column in my data set?

Current Code

df = data.frame(var1 = c("1","2","3","4"), 
                var2 = c(1,2,3,4))

Resulting Output

As shown below, var1 is a factor. I need var1 it to have the chr class.

> str(df)

'data.frame': 4 obs. of  2 variables:
$ var1 : Factor w/ 4 levels "1","2","3","4": 1 2 3 4
$ var2 : num  1 2 3 4

Trouble-shooting

Based on this post, I tried adding as.character, but var1 remains a factor.

df = data.frame(var1 = as.character(c("1","2","3","4")), 
                var2 = c(1,2,3,4))

See `?data.frame`. What you're looking for is `stringsAsFactors = FALSE`. — neilfws, May 23 '17 at 22:35
Using `stringsAsFactors = FALSE` did work. I had previously tried this, but it created a column of "FALSE". So I must have made a mistake. — Danielle, May 23 '17 at 22:38

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 23 '17 at 22:39

2

stringsAsFactors is your friend. Namely:

df = data.frame(var1 = c("1","2","3","4"),var2 = c(1,2,3,4),stringsAsFactors = F)

yielding:

> str(df)
'data.frame':   4 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ var1: chr  "1" "2" "3" "4"
 $ var2: num  1 2 3 4

answered May 23 '17 at 22:39

amonk

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 23 '17 at 22:39

0

Based on the comments, adding the argument stringsAsFactors=FALSE will create character variables instead of factor variables.

answered May 23 '17 at 22:39

Danielle

2 Answers2