R/changeTypeOfColumns.2.R

In msxakk89/dat: Data Analyst Toolkit (dat): a library of tools for data analysts and scientists

#' Change the data type of the columns in data frame (version 2)
#' 
#' Modify the data type of specified columns. Can coerce the column to the type specified by user.
#' 
#' @param df A data frame for which we wish to change the data type of the columns
#' @param rangeOfColumns A list of vectors of integers specifyung which columns to coerce. Must be non-redundant.
#' @param type One of 'numeric', 'character', 'factor', 'integer'
#' @export

changeTypeOfColumns.2 <- function(df, rangeOfColumns, type){
  if(class(rangeOfColumns) != "integer") stop("rangeOfColumns paramter is not integer. Exiting.")
  if(!(type %in% c("numeric","character","factor", "integer"))) stop("data type specification is not one of 'numeric', 'character', or 'factor'")
  for(j in 1:length(rangeOfColumns)){
    for( i in rangeOfColumns[[j]]) {
      if(type == "numeric"){
        df[,i] = as.numeric(df[,i])
      }
      if(type == "character"){
        df[,i] = as.character(df[,i])
      }
      if(type == "factor"){
        df[,i] = as.factor(df[,i])
      }
      if(type == "integer"){
        df[,i] = as.integer(df[,i])
      }
    }
  }
  df
}