I want to use the cor() function but output says 'y' must be numeric. Problem is, it is numeric

I've reading data from an xlsx file. My read code start off like this:

ecommerce<-read.xlsx("C:\Users\Thomas Rhee\Documents\GGU\GGU Fall 2018\Tools for Business Analytics\Final Project\ecommerce.xlsx", sheet = "data", startRow = 1, colNames = TRUE, col = c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8));

attach(ecommerce)

names(ecommerce)

One of the columns is "price". It looks like this:

price

<chr>

329.98  

324.83999999999997  

324.83  

350 

308 

310

I used the sapply to find out my 'price' column's class is character. I use the following code to convert it into numeric:

ecommerce$price <- as.numeric(as.character(ecommerce$price))

I checked again and it worked. I tried typing the following and get this output:

cor(rank, price)

Error in cor(rank, price) : 'y' must be numeric

I'm lost. I'm also a beginner at this, so I'm open to suggestions here. Please dumb it down for me.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

add a comment |

I've reading data from an xlsx file. My read code start off like this:

ecommerce<-read.xlsx("C:\Users\Thomas Rhee\Documents\GGU\GGU Fall 2018\Tools for Business Analytics\Final Project\ecommerce.xlsx", sheet = "data", startRow = 1, colNames = TRUE, col = c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8));

attach(ecommerce)

names(ecommerce)

One of the columns is "price". It looks like this:

price

<chr>

329.98  

324.83999999999997  

324.83  

350 

308 

310

I used the sapply to find out my 'price' column's class is character. I use the following code to convert it into numeric:

ecommerce$price <- as.numeric(as.character(ecommerce$price))

I checked again and it worked. I tried typing the following and get this output:

cor(rank, price)

Error in cor(rank, price) : 'y' must be numeric

I'm lost. I'm also a beginner at this, so I'm open to suggestions here. Please dumb it down for me.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

add a comment |

I've reading data from an xlsx file. My read code start off like this:

ecommerce<-read.xlsx("C:\Users\Thomas Rhee\Documents\GGU\GGU Fall 2018\Tools for Business Analytics\Final Project\ecommerce.xlsx", sheet = "data", startRow = 1, colNames = TRUE, col = c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8));

attach(ecommerce)

names(ecommerce)

One of the columns is "price". It looks like this:

price

<chr>

329.98  

324.83999999999997  

324.83  

350 

308 

310

I used the sapply to find out my 'price' column's class is character. I use the following code to convert it into numeric:

ecommerce$price <- as.numeric(as.character(ecommerce$price))

I checked again and it worked. I tried typing the following and get this output:

cor(rank, price)

Error in cor(rank, price) : 'y' must be numeric

I'm lost. I'm also a beginner at this, so I'm open to suggestions here. Please dumb it down for me.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

I've reading data from an xlsx file. My read code start off like this:

ecommerce<-read.xlsx("C:\Users\Thomas Rhee\Documents\GGU\GGU Fall 2018\Tools for Business Analytics\Final Project\ecommerce.xlsx", sheet = "data", startRow = 1, colNames = TRUE, col = c(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8));

attach(ecommerce)

names(ecommerce)

One of the columns is "price". It looks like this:

price

<chr>

329.98  

324.83999999999997  

324.83  

350 

308 

310

I used the sapply to find out my 'price' column's class is character. I use the following code to convert it into numeric:

ecommerce$price <- as.numeric(as.character(ecommerce$price))

I checked again and it worked. I tried typing the following and get this output:

cor(rank, price)

Error in cor(rank, price) : 'y' must be numeric

I'm lost. I'm also a beginner at this, so I'm open to suggestions here. Please dumb it down for me.

r correlation numeric

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:20

markus

14.4k11336

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

asked Nov 28 '18 at 7:37

Tom R.

add a comment |

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

This is a good example why you should not use attach.

d <- data.frame(x = 1:3)

attach(d)

x ## now available because of attach

# [1] 1 2 3



d$x <- LETTERS[1:3]

x ## however this still refers to the original values of d$x

# [1] 1 2 3

d$x

# [1] "A" "B" "C"

That means, you changed your original data in the data frame, but in your cor(.) call you reference the original one (the one which was attached)

So to solve your issue, drop the attach command and specify the columns directly (after you have transformed them to a numeric):

cor(ecommerce$rank, ecommerce$price)

Technically, you could re-attach ecommerce again, after you changed it, but because of these issues I would strongly dis-encourage you to use attach at all.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

add a comment |

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1 Answer
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active

oldest

votes

1 Answer
1

active

oldest

votes

This is a good example why you should not use attach.

d <- data.frame(x = 1:3)

attach(d)

x ## now available because of attach

# [1] 1 2 3



d$x <- LETTERS[1:3]

x ## however this still refers to the original values of d$x

# [1] 1 2 3

d$x

# [1] "A" "B" "C"

That means, you changed your original data in the data frame, but in your cor(.) call you reference the original one (the one which was attached)

So to solve your issue, drop the attach command and specify the columns directly (after you have transformed them to a numeric):

cor(ecommerce$rank, ecommerce$price)

Technically, you could re-attach ecommerce again, after you changed it, but because of these issues I would strongly dis-encourage you to use attach at all.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

add a comment |

This is a good example why you should not use attach.

d <- data.frame(x = 1:3)

attach(d)

x ## now available because of attach

# [1] 1 2 3



d$x <- LETTERS[1:3]

x ## however this still refers to the original values of d$x

# [1] 1 2 3

d$x

# [1] "A" "B" "C"

That means, you changed your original data in the data frame, but in your cor(.) call you reference the original one (the one which was attached)

So to solve your issue, drop the attach command and specify the columns directly (after you have transformed them to a numeric):

cor(ecommerce$rank, ecommerce$price)

Technically, you could re-attach ecommerce again, after you changed it, but because of these issues I would strongly dis-encourage you to use attach at all.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

add a comment |

This is a good example why you should not use attach.

d <- data.frame(x = 1:3)

attach(d)

x ## now available because of attach

# [1] 1 2 3



d$x <- LETTERS[1:3]

x ## however this still refers to the original values of d$x

# [1] 1 2 3

d$x

# [1] "A" "B" "C"

That means, you changed your original data in the data frame, but in your cor(.) call you reference the original one (the one which was attached)

So to solve your issue, drop the attach command and specify the columns directly (after you have transformed them to a numeric):

cor(ecommerce$rank, ecommerce$price)

Technically, you could re-attach ecommerce again, after you changed it, but because of these issues I would strongly dis-encourage you to use attach at all.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

This is a good example why you should not use attach.

d <- data.frame(x = 1:3)

attach(d)

x ## now available because of attach

# [1] 1 2 3



d$x <- LETTERS[1:3]

x ## however this still refers to the original values of d$x

# [1] 1 2 3

d$x

# [1] "A" "B" "C"

That means, you changed your original data in the data frame, but in your cor(.) call you reference the original one (the one which was attached)

So to solve your issue, drop the attach command and specify the columns directly (after you have transformed them to a numeric):

cor(ecommerce$rank, ecommerce$price)

Technically, you could re-attach ecommerce again, after you changed it, but because of these issues I would strongly dis-encourage you to use attach at all.

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

edited Nov 28 '18 at 8:36

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

answered Nov 28 '18 at 8:28

thothal

4,4491237

add a comment |

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