title: Coercing a character to a numeric in R
body: <p>I'm a newbie to R and I've learnt that a character string like "12.5" can be coerced to a numeric using <code>as.numeric()</code> function, which gives me the following result.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt; as.numeric("12.5")
  [1] 12.5
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But when I try following, the result doesn't contain the fractional part.</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt; as.numeric("12.0")
  [1] 12
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>is there a way to keep the fractional part in the result...</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance... </p>