Dear R-users, The new package hablar help R-users to convert columns to new data types. Also helps with summary functions like min and mean with vectors that contain NA, Inf, NaN or when they are empty. Three functions you may consider to use: install.packages("hablar") library(hablar) 1. convert() mtcars %>% convert(num(vs), int(am, gear), chr(cyl:drat)) this simple code chunk converts column 'vs' to numeric, 'am' and 'gear' to integer and 'cyl' through 'drat' to character. 2. retype() mtcars <- mtcars %>% convert(chr(everything())) mtcars %>% retype() This function is for us lazy R-programmers. It converts columns to the simplest data type possible, without loosing information. 3. s() min(c()) # base R returns Inf min(s(c())) # with s it returns NA max(c(NaN, Inf)) # base R returns NaN max(s(c(NaN, Inf))) # with s it returns NA mean(c(NA, 2, 4, NA), na.rm = TRUE) # base R returns NA mean(c(NA, 2, 4, NA)) # base R returns 3 mean(s(c(NA, 2, 4, NA))) # with s it returns 3 without using na.rm = TRUE s always returns a real value, otherwise NA. This helps you avoid the problem of getting Inf when trying to minimize empty or vectors with infinite or NaN values. You can also skip na.rm = T to simplify code syntax. More information on hablar: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/hablar/readme/README.html https://github.com/davidsjoberg/hablar https://davidsjoberg.github.io/blog/ Happy coding! David