From strings to numbers

Jim and Chuck,

Thanks a lot for your replies :)
I knew that there was a better way than the complex thing I was planning 
to apply :p (with a lot of for/while/apply arghhh)
I also remembered to use factor when my brain woke up ;)

I did something like unclass(factor(c("ab","ab","bb","cat","cat","ab"))) 
which is also doing the right job.
Thx a lot for your fast replies.

Naira

Naira wrote:

Dear all,

I would like to know if there is an easy to transform a vector of 
strings to
a vector of integers.
Ex: ("ab","ab","bb","cat","cat","ab") will be
(1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 1)

Hi Naira,
It's not all that hard...

newfactor<-as.factor(c("ab","ab","bb","cat","cat","ab"))
 newfactor
[1] ab  ab  bb  cat cat ab
Levels: ab bb cat
as.numeric(newfactor)
[1] 1 1 2 3 3 1

Jim

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Naira Naouar 

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VIB Department of Plant Systems Biology, Ghent University
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