Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 10:02:07 +0200
Message-Id: <199906230802.KAA19137@sophie.ethz.ch>
From: Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch>
To: R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: [R] coercing factors to matrix() --> num/char ? -- inconsistencies|?
The old factor() wars......
{{maybe don't just report that factor()s are broken by design..}}
If ff is a factor, e.g.,
ff <- as.factor(rep(1:2,3))
f2 <- ff; levels(f2) <- c("Lo","Hi")
1) we don't allow {in R as in S-plus 3.x} arithmetic on factors, i.e.
1 + ff
gives an error, and I think most of us believe this is as desired.
{{if one really wants the factor codes, use codes(ff) ...}}.
[BTW: S-plus 5.0r3 doesn't give an error anymore but silently returns NA,
i.e., rep(NA,6) for the above example
]
2) On the other hand, it seems that implicit coercion to character()
is rather ok, such as
> paste("A", f2)
[1] "A Lo" "A Hi" "A Lo" "A Hi" "A Lo" "A Hi"
--------
>From this logic, coercing to a matrix should coerce to character rather
than integer/numeric codes.
However,
A: both R and S-plus 3.4 give an INTEGER matrix (with codes(.)) for
rbind(ff)
cbind(f2)
B: R gives an integer matrix but S-plus a character one for
matrix(ff)
or
matrix(f2)
-------
So far the current behavior which I don't like.
I believe all matrix coercions should return mode "character" objects
for consistency with other coercion behavior of factors.
S(-plus) seems particularly inconsistent in doing different coercions
for cbind() and matrix().
Opinions ? Proposals ?
Martin Maechler <maechler@stat.math.ethz.ch> http://stat.ethz.ch/~maechler/
Seminar fuer Statistik, ETH-Zentrum SOL G1; Sonneggstr.33
ETH (Federal Inst. Technology) 8092 Zurich SWITZERLAND
phone: x-41-1-632-3408 fax: ...-1086 <><
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