What is the as.character() function in R?
Overview
The as.character() function in R converts a numeric object to a string data type or a character object. If the collection is passed to it as an object, it converts all the elements of the collection to a character or string type.
Syntax
as.character(x)
Parameter value
The as.character() function takes a single parameter value, x, which represents the numeric object that needs to be converted.
Return value
The as.character() function returns a string or a character object.
Code example 1
# calling the as.character() function over numeric objectsas.character(1)as.character(2)as.character(10)as.character(0.5)as.character(1 + 2)
Code explanation
We called the as.character() function on the numeric objects in the code written above.
Interestingly, the as.character() function can also be implemented on a vector object.
Code example 2
# creating our vector variablesmyvector1 <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)myvector2 <- c(10, 0.5, 2.5, -100)# calling the as.character() functionas.character(myvector1)as.character(myvector2)
Code explanation
- Lines 2–3: We create the vector variables
myvector1andmyvector2. - Lines 6–7: We call the
as.character()function on the vector varaibles that we created.