R coerce character vector into character and numeric

Question

I have a vector:

 > vek
[1] "0"    "0"    "NULL" "0"    "0"    "0"    "0"   "NULL"

I want to coerce vector into numeric, where is numer and string, where is string

> vek
[1] 0    0    "NULL"  0    0    0    0   "NULL"

Is it possible? How can I manage that?

Answer 1

You cannot have elements of different types in the same vector. But you can do it in a list. Maybe you could transform your vector in list direclty.

vekl <- as.list(vek)

for (i in 1: length(vekl)){
  temp <- as.numeric(vekl[[i]])
  if (! is.na(temp))
    vekl[[i]] <- temp
}

To avoid warnings, use this: suppressWarnings( temp <- as.numeric(vekl[[i]]) ). It ignores all warnings so you have to pay attention when you use this function...