Is it possible to use the caret package in R with non-numerical data?

Question

I was wondering if it is possible to use the caret package with non numerical data. I know, for example, if I want to use a simple linear regression lm I could have a factor variable for classification. However, caret blows up if I attempt this. I'm also following the step outlined here The caret Package: A Unifed Interface for Predictive Models

for illustration I'm attempting to run stepDurationlm <- train (x= trainDescr, y=trainClass, method="lm")

on

str(trainDescr)
'data.frame':   589235 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ Anon.Student.Id    : Factor w/ 574 levels "02i5jCrfQK","02ZjVTxC34",..: 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 ...
 $ Step.Duration..sec.: num  5 5 5 4 5 5 5 5 4 4 ...

I get

Error in train.default(x = trainDescr, y = trainClass, method = "lm") : 
All predictors must be numeric for this model. Use the formula interface: train(formula, data)

alternatively, could anyone explain how to have a test set for model performance in R? That's what's motivating me to get caret working.

Answer 1

Please post a reproducible example. You should also be more specific: in this case by "non-numeric data" you mean "factor data."

If you wish to use lm with categorical variables, you have 2 options: create the dummy matrix yourself, or use caret's formula interface. Here's an example of option 2:

train(y~., data=data.frame(x=trainDescr,y=trainClass), method = "lm")

Where . covers all variables in x

Answer 2

As laid out here:

The train function has the following arguments: x: a matrix or data frame of predictors. Currently, the function only accepts numeric values (i.e., no factors or character variables). In some cases, the model.matrix function may be needed to generate a data frame or matrix of purely numeric data

Although maybe this has changed by now.