The data was extracted from a PDF file. I am told by the organization responsible for the data that it is a matter of style. Well now that I know, I can get around it.
Thank you. Tom Prof Brian Ripley wrote: > 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 >>> >> > ______________________________________________ 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