Preventing R from interpreting text as numeric

Question

I am trying to import a CSV in R which has ZIP code information which R is interpreting as numeric when I need it to remain as character.

data = read.csv("zipCodeInformation.csv", stringsAsFactor = FALSE)

The data has the following format:

Lower.Zip, Upper.Zip, Zone
004,       005,       Zone.8
006,       007,       Zone.45
009,          ,       Zone.45
010,       089,       Zone.8
100,       339,       Zone.8

What happens right now is R interprets the first 2 columns as numeric and turns them into the following:

Lower.Zip, Upper.Zip, Zone
4,         5,         Zone.8
6,         7,         Zone.45
9,          ,         Zone.45
10,        89,        Zone.8
100,       339,       Zone.8

Answer 1

Use the colClasses argument to read.csv.

Data <- read.csv(text="Lower.Zip, Upper.Zip, Zone
004,       005,       Zone.8
006,       007,       Zone.45
009,          ,       Zone.45
010,       089,       Zone.8
100,       339,       Zone.8",
colClasses=rep("character",3))  # you may want to add strip.white=TRUE