> a <- c(2,3,4,5,3,4,4,4,1,3,3,3)
> input <- matrix(a,byrow=T,nrow=3)
> input
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
[1,] 2 3 4 5
[2,] 3 4 4 4
[3,] 1 3 3 3
> as.character(input)
[1] "2" "3" "1" "3" "4" "3" "4" "4" "3" "5" "4" "3"
> matrix(as.character(input),3)
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]
[1,] "2" "3" "4" "5"
[2,] "3" "4" "4" "4"
[3,] "1" "3" "3" "3"