Your minus eight is a hyphen eight, and those will print the same in a monospaced font. As to how you get a hyphen into a string, it depends how you do it but I presume this was not entered at an R console.
On Fri, 19 May 2006, Mulholland, Tom wrote: > I think you are correct (as expected) I don't know where in the original data > the string is, but there is other data doing the same thing. > > + > strsplit(test," ")[[1]] > [1] "5159" "3336" "3657" "559" "3042" "55" "307" "-8" "16104" >> as.numeric(strsplit(test," ")[[1]]) > [1] 5159 3336 3657 559 3042 55 307 NA 16104 > Warning message: > NAs introduced by coercion >> charToRaw(test) > [1] 35 31 35 39 20 33 33 33 36 20 33 36 35 37 20 35 35 39 20 33 30 34 32 20 > 35 35 20 33 30 37 20 96 38 20 31 36 31 30 34 >> test > [1] "5159 3336 3657 559 3042 55 307 -8 16104" >> x1 <- "5159 3336 3657 559 3042 55 307 -8 16104" >> charToRaw(x1) > [1] 35 31 35 39 20 33 33 33 36 20 33 36 35 37 20 35 35 39 20 33 30 34 32 20 > 35 35 20 33 30 37 20 2d 38 20 31 36 31 30 34 >> as.numeric(strsplit(x1," ")[[1]]) > [1] 5159 3336 3657 559 3042 55 307 -8 16104 >> > > So it looks as if the 96 is throwing it out. I'll dig deeper. I guess > there's a bit more pre-Processing to do. The only thing that seems > slightly strange is that the small example I made up did not use the > original data source, but was typed in the same way I did x1 above. > However I can't reproduce the error so it may still be a case of finger > trouble on my part. > > Tom > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Friday, 19 May 2006 3:03 PM >> To: Mulholland, Tom >> Cc: R-Help (E-mail) >> Subject: Re: [R] Converting character strings to numeric >> >> >> On Fri, 19 May 2006, Mulholland, Tom wrote: >> >>> After replies off the list which indicate the code should >> work. I tried a variety of approaches. >>> >>> Rebooting, Using the --vanilla option and then removing the >> whole lot and resinstalling. It now works. >>> >>> I guess it's another of those windows things? >> >> No, it works under Windows. >> >> What you have not shown us is x3: >> >>> x3 >> [1] "1159" "1129" "1124" "-5" "-0.44" "-1.52" >> >> My guess is that you have something invisible in x1, e.g. a >> nbspace not a >> space (although that does not fully explain the results). What does >> >>> charToRaw(x1) >> [1] 31 31 35 39 20 31 31 32 39 20 31 31 32 34 20 2d 35 20 >> 2d 30 2e 34 34 20 2d >> [26] 31 2e 35 32 >> >> give for you? >> >> >> >>> >>> Thanks to those that helped. >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>>> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of >> Mulholland, Tom >>>> Sent: Friday, 19 May 2006 11:48 AM >>>> To: R-Help (E-mail) >>>> Subject: [R] Converting character strings to numeric >>>> >>>> >>>> I assume that I have missed something fundamental and that it >>>> is there in front of me in "An Introduction to R", but I need >>>> someone to point me in the right direction. >>>> >>>>> x1 <- "1159 1129 1124 -5 -0.44 -1.52" >>>>> x2 <- c("1159","1129","1124","-5","-0.44","-1.52") >>>>> x3 <- unlist(strsplit(x1," ")) >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> str(x2) >>>> chr [1:6] "1159" "1129" "1124" "-5" "-0.44" "-1.52" >>>>> str(x3) >>>> chr [1:6] "1159" "1129" "1124" "-5" "-0.44" "-1.52" >>>>> >>>>> as.numeric(x2) >>>> [1] 1159.00 1129.00 1124.00 -5.00 -0.44 -1.52 >>>>> as.numeric(x3) >>>> [1] 1159 1129 1124 NA NA NA >>>> Warning message: >>>> NAs introduced by coercion >>>> >>>> What do I have to do to get x3 to be the same as x2. >>>> >>>> Tom >> >> -- >> Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ >> University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) >> 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) >> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 >> > > -- Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595 ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html