Convert data.frame columns from factors to characters

Question

I have a data frame. Let\'s call him bob:

> head(bob)
                 phenotype                         exclusion
GSM399350 3- 4- 8- 25- 44+         


        

Answer 1

If you want a new data frame bobc where every factor vector in bobf is converted to a character vector, try this:

bobc <- rapply(bobf, as.character, classes="factor", how="replace")

If you then want to convert it back, you can create a logical vector of which columns are factors, and use that to selectively apply factor

f <- sapply(bobf, class) == "factor"
bobc[,f] <- lapply(bobc[,f], factor)