data.frame into vector

Hi

I want to extract a row from a data.frame but I want that object to 
be a vector . After trying some different ways I end up always with a 
data.frame or with the wrong vector. Any pointers?

  x <- data.frame(a = factor(c('a',2,'b')), b = c(4,5,6))
I want to get
"a" "4"

I tried:

as.vector(x[1,])
   a b
1 a 4
(resulting in a data.frame even after in my mind having coerced it 
into a vector!)

as.vector(c[1,], numeric='character')
[1] "2" "4"
(almost what I want, except that "2" instead of "a" - I guess this as 
to do with levels and factors)

Thanks for any help

Part of the problem that you are having, as you seem to pick up, is that
the first column in 'x' is a factor and you need to coerce it to a
character.

If you review the help for as.matrix, you will note in the details
section:

"as.matrix is a generic function. The method for data frames will
convert any non-numeric/complex column into a character vector using
format and so return a character matrix, except that all-logical data
frames will be coerced to a logical matrix."

Thus, one approach is:

as.matrix(x)[1, ]

a   b
"a" "4"

This coerces the data frame to a character matrix, which is then
subsetted to the first row only.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz