Convert Character to Factor in R (3 Examples)

This article shows how to convert characters to factors in the R programming language.

Table of contents:

• Example 1: Convert Character Vector to Factor
• Example 2: Convert Character Column to Factor
• Example 3: Convert All Character Columns of Data Frame to Factor
• Video & Further Resources

Sound good? Let’s dig in…

Example 1: Convert Character Vector to Factor

This example shows how to convert a vector with character class to the factor class in the R programming language. Consider the following example vector:

vec <- c("A", "B", "A", "D", "C", "B")                     # Create example vector

We can check the class of our vector with the class function:

class(vec)                                                 # Check class of vector
# "character"

The RStudio console shows the data type of our vector: It’s a character. Now, we can use the as.factor function to convert this character string to the factor class:

vec_updated <- as.factor(vec)                              # Convert character vector to factor

Our updated vector is stored in the data object vec_updated. Again, we can use the class function to check the class of our updated vector:

class(vec_updated)
# "factor"

It’s a factor!

Example 2: Convert Character Column to Factor

We can also convert character variables (i.e. columns) of data frames to the factor type. Consider the following example data frame:

data <- data.frame(x1 = 1:5,                               # Create example data frame
                   x2 = letters[1:5],
                   x3 = c(4, 1, 5, 3, 1),
                   x4 = c("Male", "Female", "Male", "Male", "Female"),
                   stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
data                                                       # Print example data frame
# x1 x2 x3     x4
#  1  a  4   Male
#  2  b  1 Female
#  3  c  5   Male
#  4  d  3   Male
#  5  e  1 Female

As you can see based on the output of the RStudio console, our example data frame contains of five rows and four columns, whereby column 2 and 4 are characters.

Let’s first duplicate this data frame for this example:

data2 <- data                                              # Replicate example data frame

Now, we can check the class of the column x2 by applying the class function to this column:

class(data2$x2)                                            # Check class of second column
# "character"

As you can see, our column has the character class. Now, we can apply the as.factor class to replace our character column with the corresponding factor:

data2$x2 <- as.factor(data2$x2)                            # Convert character column to factor

If we check the class again, we can see that the updated column is a factor:

class(data2$x2)                                            # Check class of second column
# "factor"

Example 3: Convert All Character Columns of Data Frame to Factor

In Example 2, I explained how to convert one character variable to a factor in R. In this example, I’ll illustrate how to convert all character columns to factor in R.

Let’s duplicate our example data again:

data3 <- data                                              # Replicate example data frame

Now, we can use the str function to identify the classes of all our variables:

str(data3)                                                 # Check class of all columns
# 'data.frame':	5 obs. of  4 variables:
# $ x1: int  1 2 3 4 5
# $ x2: chr  "a" "b" "c" "d" ...
# $ x3: num  4 1 5 3 1
# $ x4: chr  "Male" "Female" "Male" "Male" ...

The previous output visualizes that columns 2 and 4 are characters. Now, we can use the as.data.frame function in combination with the unclass function to convert all character columns to factor in R:

data3 <- as.data.frame(unclass(data3),                     # Convert all columns to factor
                       stringsAsFactors = TRUE)

If we apply the str function again, we can see the change:

str(data3)                                                 # Check class of all columns
# 'data.frame':	5 obs. of  4 variables:
# $ x1: int  1 2 3 4 5
# $ x2: Factor w/ 5 levels "a","b","c","d",..: 1 2 3 4 5
# $ x3: num  4 1 5 3 1
# $ x4: Factor w/ 2 levels "Female","Male": 2 1 2 2 1

Columns 2 and 4 were converted to factors.

Video & Further Resources

In case you need more info on the examples of this article, I can recommend to have a look at the following video of my YouTube channel. I explain the contents of this article in the video:

Additionally, you might have a look at the other articles of this website. Some articles are listed here:

• How to Convert a Character to Numeric in R
• How to Convert a Factor to Numeric in R
• Convert Data Frame Column to Numeric
• type.convert R Function
• The R Programming Language

In this R article you learned how to change vectors and columns from character string to factor. If you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments section.