This comes about since when using read.table (which I assume you did, but you did not show us what commands you were using), characters are converted to factors. If you are not using factors, then you probably want the data read in as characters. You should understand the use of 'str' to look at the structure of your objects to understand what might be happening. See example below:
> tab <- read.table(textConnection(" one two + 1 apple fruit + 2 ball game + 3 chair wood + 4 wood plain + 5 fruit banana + 6 cloth silk")) > closeAllConnections() > str(tab) # note the you have 'factors' 'data.frame': 6 obs. of 2 variables: $ one: Factor w/ 6 levels "apple","ball",..: 1 2 3 6 5 4 $ two: Factor w/ 6 levels "banana","fruit",..: 2 3 6 4 1 5 > cbind(tab$one, tab$two) # this gives numeric values of the factors [,1] [,2] [1,] 1 2 [2,] 2 3 [3,] 3 6 [4,] 6 4 [5,] 5 1 [6,] 4 5 > # now read in data and not convert to factors (note: as.is=TRUE) > tab <- read.table(textConnection(" one two + 1 apple fruit + 2 ball game + 3 chair wood + 4 wood plain + 5 fruit banana + 6 cloth silk"), as.is = TRUE) > closeAllConnections() > str(tab) # now you have characters 'data.frame': 6 obs. of 2 variables: $ one: chr "apple" "ball" "chair" "wood" ... $ two: chr "fruit" "game" "wood" "plain" ... > cbind(tab$one, tab$two) # this gives character values [,1] [,2] [1,] "apple" "fruit" [2,] "ball" "game" [3,] "chair" "wood" [4,] "wood" "plain" [5,] "fruit" "banana" [6,] "cloth" "silk" > On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 7:06 AM, karthicklakshman <karthick.laksh...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I am new to R and request your kind help. > > I have a table like the one below, > one two > 1 apple fruit > 2 ball game > 3 chair wood > 4 wood plain > 5 fruit banana > 6 cloth silk > > Note: duplicate entries are there > > the task is to create relations to each each row entries, like "apple -> > fruit" . when I tried to combine column1 with column 2 (one, two), using > "cbind" the string is changed to numerical value...something like this > [,1] [,2] > [1,] 10 53 > [2,] 25 562 > [3,] 25 462 > [4,] 25 1045 > [5,] 25 488 > [6,] 26 1062 > [7,] 27 951 > [8,] 27 144 > [9,] 27 676 > [10,] 27 486 > > Please suggest me how to get the string names back like the first table in > the out put, using cbind. > > Thanks in advance > regards > kaarz > > -- > View this message in context: > http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Cbind-query-tp3006988p3006988.html > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Jim Holtman Cincinnati, OH +1 513 646 9390 What is the problem that you are trying to solve? ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.