Using merge can convert character variables to factor

I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but I could not find it
documented. In certain circumstances, using merge can convert a character
variable to factor. Consider a simple example:

x <- data.frame(a = 1:4)
y <- data.frame(b = LETTERS[1:3])
z <- merge(x, y, by = 0)
unlist(lapply(z, data.class))

Row.names         a         b 
 "factor" "integer"  "factor" 

So far, so good. b should be a factor since it is a factor in y.

is.factor(y$b)

[1] TRUE

Changing b to be a charcter variable works as well.

y$b <- as.character(y$b)
z <- merge(x, y, by = 0)
unlist(lapply(z, data.class))

Row.names           a           b 
   "factor"   "integer" "character" 

But when we change the merge to include all of the x rows in the resulting
dataframe, we get:

z <- merge(x, y, by = 0, all.x = TRUE)
unlist(lapply(z, data.class))

Row.names         a         b 
 "factor" "integer"  "factor"

I think that b should still be a character variable in this case.

If this is a bug, please let me know and I would be happy to submit it.

R.version

_                   
platform sparc-sun-solaris2.6
arch     sparc               
os       solaris2.6          
system   sparc, solaris2.6   
status                       
major    1                   
minor    5.0                 
year     2002                
month    04                  
day      29                  
language R                   

Thanks,

Dave Kane
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