[datatable-help] Auto-convert characters to factors when settings keys?

[Matthew Dowle]

On Tue, 2010-05-25 at 09:33 -0400, Steve Lianoglou wrote:
> Also, you suggested to try data.table(df) instead of
> as.data.table(df), but this doesn't change anything with respect to
> the behavior of setting key on a character column:
> 
> R> df <- data.frame(a=LETTERS[1:10], b=1:10, stringsAsFactors=F)
> R> dt <- data.table(df)
> R> key(dt) <- 'a'
>   All keyed columns must be storage mode integer
> 
> Or
> 
> R> dt <- data.table(df, key='a')
> Error in setkey(value, a) :
>   All keyed columns must be storage mode integer
> 
Thats strange. I thought it would. I added bug #953 to the tracker for
this one, so we don't forget to come back to this thread. Thanks for
reporting that.
Matthew