NOTE 2: INTRODUCTION TO R
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• R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics.
• R is available as a FREE software and runs on Linux, Windows and Macintosh.
• R provides a wide variety of statistical analysis;
o Linear and nonlinear modelling
o Classical statistical tests
o Time – series analysis
o Classification
o Clustering
o Big data analysis
o Data mining
o Graphical representation towards data
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• R is;
✓ an effective data handling and storage facility.
✓ a suite of operators for calculation on arrays, in particular matrices.
✓ a large, coherent, integrated collection of intermediate tools for data analysis.
✓ a well-developed, simple and effective programming language which
includes conditionals, loops, user-defined recursive functions and input and
output facilities.
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Starting and Exiting R
• To start,
✓ Double click on the R shortcut icon
• To exit,
✓ On the command window, type : >q()
✓ Menu command: File → Exit
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• R is code driven.
• It fundamentally follows the question and answer model.
• R issues a prompt when it expects input commands. The default
prompt is “ >”.
• If a command is too long to fit on a line, a “+” is used for the
continuation prompt.
• R is case sensitive.
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Working directory
• To print the current working directory, type: >getwd()
• To change the current working directory, type: >setwd(“H:”)
→ specify the path in which you want to save your project.
Ex: “C:/Users/S20999/Desktop/STA1031”
The Workspace
• Your R objects are stored in a workspace.
• To list the objects in your workspace, type: >ls()
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To save the workspace to the file
“[Link]”
• Default file type: “ .Rdata”
>[Link]()
• To load a workspace into the current session:
>load(“[Link]”) OR
>load(“H:/mydocuments/[Link]”)
• Including file paths
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History
• To work with your previous commands:
>history() → display last 25 commands
>history([Link]=Inf) → display all previous commands
• To save your command history default name as “ [Link] ”
>savehistory(file=“myfile”)
• To recall your command history:
>loadhistory(file=“myfile”)
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Getting Help
• If you know a particular command, but don’t know the correct
syntax then:
help(“command”)
Ex: >help(“ls”) OR >?ls
• If you don’t know the command, but know the keyword then:
[Link](“key word”)
Ex: >[Link](“standard deviation”)
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• If you want a list of all the functions containing a particular word then:
apropos(“word”)
Ex: >apropos(“read”)
• If you want to get an example of how a function is used then:
example(“function_name”)
Ex: >example(“[Link]”)
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R as a calculator
• Oneof the simplest possible tasks in R is to enter an arithmetic expression
and obtain a result.
The number in the brackets is the
index of the element of the output.
To find the square root of a number
Eg: 16
To find the exponent of a number
Eg: e-2
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To find the value of 𝜋
To find natural logarithm of 100 (with base ‘e’)
To find the logarithm of 100 with base 10
To find 122 ; base^exponent
To calculate 3! = 1 × 2 × 3
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This code doesn’t give you the correct result,
because R always works with angles in
radians, not in degrees
The correct way to calculate the sine of
an angle of 120 degrees
Important:
R is CASE SENSITIVE!!!
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Variables
• Even on a calculator, it is necessary to store intermediate results. For
that purpose R, like other computer languages, has symbolic variables.
(Names you can use to represent values).
• There are three types of variables;
1. Numeric
Ex: 2, 10092, 4.566778
2. Character
Ex: ‘Silver’, ‘Statistics’, ‘Computer’
3. Logical
Ex: TRUE, FALSE
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Naming Variables
• Variables names
✓ can be built using letters, digits, period (.) and underscore ( _ ).
✓ cannot contain multiple words. If there are multiple words, they can be
connected using the underscore or period sign.
✓ must not start with a digit or a period followed by a digit. that start with a
period are special and should be avoided.
✓ are case-sensitive.
• Some names are already used by the system. You cannot use the following as
variable names.
Ex: c, q, t, D, F, I, T, diff, df, pt
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Assigning values to variables
• “<-” , “->” and “=” signs are used to indicate assignment.
> x<-5 OR > 5->x OR > x=5
• To display the value,
> x
[1] 5
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Vectors
• You cannot do much statistics on single [Link] we want to work with more
than one number, the solution is VECTORS.
• A vector is a sequence of data elements of the same basic type.
• One advantage of R is that it can handle entire data vectors as single objects.
c(……….) means concatenating
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Example 1:
Enter the following numbers into X and perform the following operations.
3, 5, 7, 2, 6, 8, 4, 1, 9, 10
i. a=X+X
ii. b = X2/4
iii. y = a + b + 2
iv. z = 1/y
v. Print X, a, b, y and z
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Answer
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• Suppose you want to recover the 3rd element of the vector X in Example 1.
The index of the corresponding element should
indicate within square brackets
• You can also view the first 3 elements and the last 2 elements separately.
To display the first 3 elements
To display the last 2 elements
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Character Vectors
• A character vector is a vector of text strings, whose elements
needs to be specified and printed within quotes.
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Logical Vectors
• Logical vectors can take the value TRUE or FALSE
• In inputting, you may use the convenient abbreviation T or F
>c(T,F,T,F,F,T)
Ex: (Using the X vector from example 1)
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Missing Values
• Missing values are represented by the symbol NA (Not Available).
• Impossible values (e.g. Dividing by zero) are represented by the symbol "Nan"
(Not A Number).
• Infinite values are represented by "Inf“.
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Example 2
Enter the following numbers into X and Y respectively and perform the
following operations and print the outputs.
X → 3, 6, 1, 8, 10 Y →5, 7, 4, 2, 9
i. a=X+Y
ii. Find a2 and assign the values to a vector b
iii. Create a logical vector Z to check if X is greater than Y
iv. Print the first three elements of Z
v. Multiply the first two elements of X with the last two elements of Y
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