R: remove Na from factor vector and convert it to numeric

0
votes

I have a vector like this

 [1] "72.82947"  NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          "66.00949"  NA         
  [9] NA          "0.133434"  NA          NA          "2.265083"  NA          NA          NA         
 [17] " 0"        NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          NA         
 [25] "0.311346"  NA          NA          " 0"        NA          NA          NA          NA         
 [33] NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          "0.7024582" NA          NA         
 [41] NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          NA          "3.543211"  NA         
 [49] NA          "5.779669"  NA          "4.617021"  NA          "1.682751"  NA          NA         
 [57] NA          NA          NA          "0.214977"  NA          NA          NA          "1.573152"

Following many previous questions (How to remove all the NA from a Vector?, R script - removing NA values from a vector, R: removing NAs in numerical vectors ) and manuals I used

vector.test[!is.na(exo.1.4.mad)]

and

vector.test[na.omit(exo.1.4.mad)]

But none of them works. I always get back the same vector with NA. Then I tried to subset the vector manually, indicating the position where I have values and I tried to convert it in numeric values:

as.numeric(as.character(exo.1.4.mad.values))

But also this does not work, and NAs are introduced by coercion. At this point I think I'm missing something concerning the formatting/class of my original vector.

Any suggestion?

I add some more information for my object:

typeof(exo.1.4.mad) 1 "integer"

dput(exo.1.4.mad) structure(c(33L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 31L, 37L, 37L, 4L, 37L, 37L, 20L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 1L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 8L, 37L, 37L, 1L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 11L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 24L, 37L, 37L, 29L, 37L, 26L, 37L, 19L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 6L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 18L, 37L, 2L, 37L, 1L, 37L, 14L, 37L, 25L, 37L, 27L, 37L, 10L, 37L, 3L, 37L, 37L, 35L, 37L, 37L, 28L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 32L, 37L, 12L, 37L, 30L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 36L, 37L, 37L, 7L, 37L, 13L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 9L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 21L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 15L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 34L, 37L, 23L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 22L, 37L, 37L, 37L, 16L, 37L, 37L, 17L, 37L, 5L, 37L), .Label = c("\" 0\"", "\"0.044478\"", "\"0.1103672\"", "\"0.133434\"", "\"0.1893487\"", "\"0.214977\"", "\"0.2506812\"", "\"0.311346\"", "\"0.3219932\"", "\"0.409485\"", "\"0.7024582\"", "\"0.7029872\"", "\"0.7983231\"", "\"1.104537\"", "\"1.170474\"", "\"1.2355\"", "\"1.255681\"", "\"1.573152\"", "\"1.682751\"", "\"2.265083\"", "\"2.491765\"", "\"2.566038\"", "\"2.731105\"", "\"3.543211\"", "\"4.42271\"", "\"4.617021\"", "\"5.235322\"", "\"5.340412\"", "\"5.779669\"", "\"5.847934\"", "\"66.00949\"", "\"67.9525\"", "\"72.82947\"", "\"75.2123\"", "\"8.347973\"", "\"9.832462\"", "NA"), class = "factor")

this confuses me even more!

3
rvector
stackoverflow.com/questions/4862178/… This link might help in removing NAs. after removing NAs, as.numeric should help. – Manoj G
I've tried your code on your vector and it works fine. Are you sure you have a vector there? Can you please provide str(vector.test) ? – David Arenburg
na.omit might not work here. but your is.na command should have worked. You could try this as well... as.numeric(vect.test[complete.cases(vect.test)]) – Manoj G
@DavidArenburg, you got it right! > str(exo.1.4.mad) Factor w/ 37 levels "\" 0\"","\"0.044478\"",..: 33 37 37 37 37 37 31 37 37 4 ... – efrem
@ManojG, thank you this is the result of your code: [1] 33 37 37 37 37 37 31 37 37 4 37 37 20 37 37 37 1 37 37 37 37 37 37 37 8 37 37 1 37 37 37 37 37 [34] 37 37 37 37 11 37 37 37 37 37 37 37 37 24 37 37 29 37 26 37 19 37 37 37 37 37 6 37 37 37 18 37 2 [67] 37 1 37 14 37 25 37 27 37 10 37 3 37 37 35 37 37 28 37 37 37 32 37 12 37 30 37 37 37 37 37 36 37 – efrem

3 Answers

2
votes

Try:

exo1 <- as.numeric(gsub("[^.0-9]+","",exo.1.4.mad))
exo1[!is.na(exo1)]
 #[1] 72.8294700 66.0094900  0.1334340  2.2650830  0.0000000  0.3113460
 #[7]  0.0000000  0.7024582  3.5432110  5.7796690  4.6170210  1.6827510
 #[13]  0.2149770  1.5731520  0.0444780  0.0000000  1.1045370  4.4227100
 #[19]  5.2353220  0.4094850  0.1103672  8.3479730  5.3404120 67.9525000
 #[25]  0.7029872  5.8479340  9.8324620  0.2506812  0.7983231  0.3219932
 #[31]  2.4917650  1.1704740 75.2123000  2.7311050  2.5660380  1.2355000
 #[37]  1.2556810  0.1893487

Explanation

 [^.0-9]+ ## select everything else other than digits and dot and remove it.
1
votes

Here is something that works for me :

> myVec <- c(NA, "1", "2", NA)
> myVec
[1] NA  "1" "2" NA 
> as.numeric(myVec[!is.na(myVec)])
[1] 1 2

Does this help you ?

1
votes

The problem with your data is that your "NA"s are not realy NAs as R defines them, but just characters. Thus is.na won't work here. Simply do

exo.1.4.mad[exo.1.4.mad != "NA"]