What is the most efficient way to convert multiple columns in a data frame from character to numeric format?
I have a dataframe called DF with all character variables.
I would like to do something like
for (i in names(DF){
DF$i <- as.numeric(DF$i)
}
Thank you
You could try
DF <- data.frame("a" = as.character(0:5),
"b" = paste(0:5, ".1", sep = ""),
"c" = letters[1:6],
stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
# Check columns classes
sapply(DF, class)
# a b c
# "character" "character" "character"
cols.num <- c("a","b")
DF[cols.num] <- sapply(DF[cols.num],as.numeric)
sapply(DF, class)
# a b c
# "numeric" "numeric" "character"