R: Converting data frame of percentages from factor to numeric

Question

Running into issues converting a data frame into R.

I have a bunch of columns that were read as factors and have % symbols with them.

I

Answer 1

Here is a one line solution that assumes the data is in fixed width columns. I needed to remove the first row of names since all the columns did not have names. The widths of columns are specified as integers (with negative meaning to skip that many characters.) It also changes the column classes to numeric during the read.

your data

1 12-Oct        0%      0%      39%      14%
2 12-Nov        0%      6%      59%       4%
3 12-Dec       22%      0%      37%      26%
4 13-Jan       45%      0%      66%      19%
5 13-Feb       28%     39%      74%      13%

the R one-line script

adf <- read.fwf(file="a.dat",widths=c(-8,9,-1,7,-1,8,-1,8),colClasses=rep("numeric",4))

output result (first col provided by R to count the rows)

  V1 V2 V3 V4
1  0  0 39 14
2  0  6 59  4
3 22  0 37 26
4 45  0 66 19
5 28 39 74 13