Skip to contents

Coerce a defined vector to numeric

Source: R/as_numeric.R
as_numeric.Rd

as_numeric() is the recommended method to convert a defined() vector to a numeric vector. It ensures the underlying data is numeric and can optionally preserve semantic metadata.

Base R's as.numeric() does not support custom classes like defined(). This method drops all metadata and class information, returning a plain numeric vector. It is equivalent to as_numeric(x, preserve_attributes = FALSE).

Usage

as_numeric(x, ...)

# S3 method for class 'haven_labelled_defined'
as_numeric(x, preserve_attributes = FALSE, ...)

# S3 method for class 'haven_labelled_defined'
as.numeric(x, ...)

Arguments

x

A vector created with defined().

...

Reserved for future use.

preserve_attributes

Logical. Whether to keep metadata attributes. Defaults to FALSE.

Value

A numeric vector (either bare or with metadata, depending on the preserve_attributes argument).

Details

If preserve_attributes = TRUE, the returned vector retains the unit, concept, and namespace attributes, but is no longer of class "defined". If FALSE (default), a base numeric vector is returned without metadata.

For character-based defined vectors, an error is thrown to avoid invalid coercion.

See also

as.character(), strip_defined()

Examples

gdp <- defined(c(3897L, 7365L), label = "GDP", unit = "million dollars")

# Drop all metadata
as_numeric(gdp)
#> [1] 3897 7365

# Preserve unit and concept
as_numeric(gdp, preserve_attributes = TRUE)
#> [1] 3897 7365
#> attr(,"label")
#> [1] "GDP"
#> attr(,"unit")
#> [1] "million dollars"

# Equivalence to base coercion (without metadata)
as.numeric(gdp)
#> [1] 3897 7365

# Metadata-aware variant preferred in pipelines
attr(as_numeric(gdp, TRUE), "unit")
#> [1] "million dollars"