Difference between as.data.frame(x) and data.frame(x)

Question

What is the difference between as.data.frame(x) and data.frame(x)

In this following example, the result is the same at the exception of the columns names.

Answer 1

As mentioned by Jaap, data.frame() calls as.data.frame() but there's a reason for it:

as.data.frame() is a method to coerce other objects to class data.frame. If you're writing your own package, you would store your method to convert an object of your_class under as.data.frame.your_class(). Here are just a few examples.

methods(as.data.frame)
 [1] as.data.frame.AsIs            as.data.frame.Date           
 [3] as.data.frame.POSIXct         as.data.frame.POSIXlt        
 [5] as.data.frame.aovproj*        as.data.frame.array          
 [7] as.data.frame.character       as.data.frame.complex        
 [9] as.data.frame.data.frame      as.data.frame.default        
[11] as.data.frame.difftime        as.data.frame.factor         
[13] as.data.frame.ftable*         as.data.frame.integer        
[15] as.data.frame.list            as.data.frame.logLik*        
[17] as.data.frame.logical         as.data.frame.matrix         
[19] as.data.frame.model.matrix    as.data.frame.numeric        
[21] as.data.frame.numeric_version as.data.frame.ordered        
[23] as.data.frame.raw             as.data.frame.table          
[25] as.data.frame.ts              as.data.frame.vector         

   Non-visible functions are asterisked