Call type.convert after dcast

[krlmlr]

It would be great if dcast optionally called type.convert on each resulting column. Perhaps triggered by a new parameter as.is that defaults to NA (=no type.convert) and otherwise is passed to the type.convert call?

Sometimes data is given as a key-value list; if the values contain non-numerics, everything is a character after dcast.

[macrakis]

That's a terrible idea! I don't want dcast to guess the types of my data -- I want it to preserve them.

[krlmlr]

Now I see my request is not clear: I'm referring to the data in the value column only; of course, data in key columns should be preserved. Does this make more sense?