R help - Apr 2000 - converting numerical parts of factors into numeric vector

This is a bit of a roughie, but it might do what you want.

test<-as.factor(c(1,2,3,4,5,"YES","NO","MAYBE",9,10))
fact2num<-function(f) {
 if(!missing(f)){
  if(is.factor(f)) {
   fnew<-vector("numeric",length(f))
   for(i in 1:length(f)) fnew[i]<-as.numeric(as.character(f[i]))
   return(fnew)
  }
 }
 cat("Usage: fact2num(f)\n\twhere f is a factor vector\n")
}
fact2num(test)

Please loftily ignore the error messages.

Jim

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