why as.vector can't make x to be a vector?

According to the documentation (?as.vector), "All attributes are removed from the result if it is of an atomic mode, but not in general for a list result."

data.frames are lists so

is.vector(as.vector(x))

[1] FALSE

However if you convert using unlist() or as.matrix(), you will get a vector:

is.vector(unlist(x))

[1] TRUE

is.vector(as.vector(as.matrix(x)))

[1] TRUE


-------------------------------------
David L Carlson
Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77840-4352




-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Duncan Murdoch
Sent: Sunday, December 15, 2013 6:12 AM
To: ????; r-help
Subject: Re: [R] why as.vector can't make x to be a vector?

x=read.table(text="

+   Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4
+ 2010  1.8  8.0  6.0  3.0
+ 2011  2.0 11.0  7.0  3.5
+ 2012  2.5 14.0  8.0  4.2
+ 2013  3.0 15.2  9.5  5.0",sep="",header=TRUE)

x

      Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4
2010  1.8  8.0  6.0  3.0
2011  2.0 11.0  7.0  3.5
2012  2.5 14.0  8.0  4.2
2013  3.0 15.2  9.5  5.0

as.vector(x)

      Qtr1 Qtr2 Qtr3 Qtr4
2010  1.8  8.0  6.0  3.0
2011  2.0 11.0  7.0  3.5
2012  2.5 14.0  8.0  4.2
2013  3.0 15.2  9.5  5.0

class(as.vector(x))

[1] "data.frame"

Data frames are lists, which are already vectors.

Duncan Murdoch

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