converting the variable datatype

Question

I have a data frame with 25 variables.

I would like to convert the columns 2:8 ; 10:17 ; 24:25 as numeric.

I am using a separate for loops to convert the data type. Is there a way, i could use a single for loop and convert them to numeric.

Also, I wanted to convert 9, 18 in date format.

It would be helpful, if you could help me to minimise my code to single for loop

for (i in 2:8){
  claim[,i] <- as.numeric(claim[,i])
}

for(i in 10:17){
  claim[,i] <- as.numeric(claim[,i])
}

for(i in 24:25){
  claim[,i] <- as.numeric(claim[,i])
}

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 03 '18 at 09:10

This is not super efficient, but the first thing that comes to mind is defining a vector that contains the indices that you want to transform, and then iterating across it like this:

indices <- c(2:8, 10:17, 24:25)

for(i in indices) {
  claim[,i] <- as.numeric(claim[,i])
}

Terru_theTerror · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-03T09:25:47.117

0

Try this one row code:

claim[,c(2:8,10:17,24:25)] <- lapply(claim[,c(2:8,10:17,24:25)], as.numeric)

Adaptation of this answer.

The same could be done with date convertion:

claim[,c(9,18)] <- lapply(claim[,c(9,18)], as.Date)

edited Apr 03 '18 at 09:25

answered Apr 03 '18 at 09:12

Terru_theTerror

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Yes it's true, It was redundant. Edited, thank you. – Terru_theTerror Apr 03 '18 at 09:16
getting an error undefined columns selected – Rohi Apr 03 '18 at 09:19
Please add a sample of your dataframe. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5963269/how-to-make-a-great-r-reproducible-example – Terru_theTerror Apr 03 '18 at 09:23
1

It worked and I have accepted it as answer – Rohi Apr 03 '18 at 09:27

converting the variable datatype

2 Answers2