Character column with floats does not convert to numeric

I have two variables of which the str() is listed below. I have tried everything to convert these columns to numeric, but they will not budge.

str()

$ ASKPRICE_B_B : atomic 4,47 4,49 4,47 4,36 ... ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "ASK PRICE_B_B" ..- attr(*, "format.stata")= chr "%9s" $ BIDPRICE_B_B : atomic 4,4 4,39 4,33 4,29 ... ..- attr(*, "label")= chr "BID PRICE_B_B" ..- attr(*, "format.stata")= chr "%9s"

I have tried:

df$ASKPRICE_B_B <- as.numeric(as.character(df$ASKPRICE_B_B))

tried:

df$ASKPRICE_B_B <- as.numeric(gsub(",", ".", gsub("\.", "", df$ASKPRICE_B_B)))

tried:

df$ASKPRICE_B_B <- sub(",", ".", df$ASKPRICE_B_B)

Mostly giving the error:

Error: unexpected numeric constant in "X1809$ASKPRICE_B_B"

I tried many other things but I cannot figure out what is going wrong..

I think it has something to do with the float being separated with a comma instead of a dot. Somehow I have not even been able to replace the comma with a dot.

How are you importing the data? Have you tried fixing the problem at import, with something like a dec = "," argument to read.table or read.csv?

– Gregor
Sep 18 '18 at 16:18

dec = ","

read.table

read.csv

2 Answers
2

Try:
as.numeric((gsub(",", ".", df$ASKPRICE_B_B)))

as.numeric((gsub(",", ".", df$ASKPRICE_B_B)))

PS: As suggested by @Gregor, you could set the right character used in the file for decimal points (here, dec = ",") while importing your data.

dec = ","

gsub returns a character always, so your as.character won't do anything.

– Gregor
Sep 18 '18 at 16:19

gsub

as.character

You're right, I wrote my answer too quickly. Thanks

– ANG
Sep 18 '18 at 16:22

Worked like a charm! Thank you so much!

– Tom
Sep 18 '18 at 16:26

. is a regex character. You need to escape them using or fixed = TRUE. Try.

df$ASKPRICE_B_B <- as.numeric(gsub(",", ".", as.character(df$ASKPRICE_B_B), fixed = TRUE))

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