r - Convert all data frame character columns to factors

Question

Given a (pre-existing) data frame that has columns of various types, what is the simplest way to convert all its character columns to factors, without affecting any columns of other types?

Here's an example data.frame:

df <- data.frame(A = factor(LETTERS[1:5]),
                 B = 1:5, C = as.logical(c(1, 1, 0, 0, 1)),
                 D = letters[1:5],
                 E = paste(LETTERS[1:5], letters[1:5]),
                 stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
df
#   A B     C D   E
# 1 A 1  TRUE a A a
# 2 B 2  TRUE b B b
# 3 C 3 FALSE c C c
# 4 D 4 FALSE d D d
# 5 E 5  TRUE e E e
str(df)
# 'data.frame':  5 obs. of  5 variables:
#  $ A: Factor w/ 5 levels "A","B","C","D",..: 1 2 3 4 5
#  $ B: int  1 2 3 4 5
#  $ C: logi  TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE
#  $ D: chr  "a" "b" "c" "d" ...
#  $ E: chr  "A a" "B b" "C c" "D d" ...

I know I can do:

df$D <- as.factor(df$D)
df$E <- as.factor(df$E)

Is there a way to automate this process a bit more?

Answer 1

Roland's answer is great for this specific problem, but I thought I would share a more generalized approach.

DF <- data.frame(x = letters[1:5], y = 1:5, z = LETTERS[1:5], 
                 stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
str(DF)
# 'data.frame':  5 obs. of  3 variables:
#  $ x: chr  "a" "b" "c" "d" ...
#  $ y: int  1 2 3 4 5
#  $ z: chr  "A" "B" "C" "D" ...

## The conversion
DF[sapply(DF, is.character)] <- lapply(DF[sapply(DF, is.character)], 
                                       as.factor)
str(DF)
# 'data.frame':  5 obs. of  3 variables:
#  $ x: Factor w/ 5 levels "a","b","c","d",..: 1 2 3 4 5
#  $ y: int  1 2 3 4 5
#  $ z: Factor w/ 5 levels "A","B","C","D",..: 1 2 3 4 5

For the conversion, the left hand side of the assign (DF[sapply(DF, is.character)]) subsets the columns that are character. In the right hand side, for that subset, you use lapply to perform whatever conversion you need to do. R is smart enough to replace the original columns with the results.

The handy thing about this is if you wanted to go the other way or do other conversions, it's as simple as changing what you're looking for on the left and specifying what you want to change it to on the right.