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How to prevent fix() from converting Dates into numeric

4 messages · Brian Ripley, Christian Gold

Christian Gold
# 
Dear list members

Here is a strange problem that I have had for a long time, without 
finding out how to solve it. Whenever I use fix() on a data.frame that 
contains Dates, these are converted to numerics. As shown by the very 
simple example:

a <- data.frame(var1 = 1, today = Sys.Date() )
a
fix(a)
a

Why is that? And can anything be done against it?

Many thanks for your help!

Best,

Christian Gold
www.uib.no/people/cgo022
Brian Ripley
# 
fix on a data frame calls edit: see ?edit.data.frame.  The help for 
fix does say

   Editing an \R object may change it in ways other than are obvious: see
   the comment under \code{\link{edit}}.

The simple answer is not to use fix() or edit() on other than the data 
frames they are documented to work on.
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007, Christian Gold wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

        

  
    

      
      
    

  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Christian Gold
    

    

      
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Thanks. So there is no solution, other than avoiding fix() and edit()?
What would then be the recommended way to make visible and inspect large 
data.frames (i.e. that are to big for sensibly displaying on the 
console)? Would I need to write the data to a file and open in a 
spreadsheet programme?

Christian

        
Prof Brian Ripley wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

            

      
      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Brian Ripley
    

    

      
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See ?View for your new question (and please change the subject line when 
you change the subject: see the R posting guide)

You could also have used e.g. format() on the data frame before calling 
fix() if all you want to do was to view it.

        
On Sat, 8 Dec 2007, Christian Gold wrote: