Unit I: Programming in R
Calling Functions:
Functions are useful when you want to perform a certain task
multiple times. A function accepts input arguments and produces
the output by executing valid R commands that are inside the
function. In R Programming Language when you are creating a
function the function name and the file in which you are creating
the function need not be the same and you can have one or more
functions in R.
Creating a Function in R
Functions are created in R by using the command function(). The
general structure of the function file is as follows:
Note: In the above syntax f is the function name, this means that
you are creating a function with name f which takes certain
arguments and executes the following statements.
Types of Function in R Language
- Built-in Function: Built-in functions in R are pre-defined
functions that are available in R programming languages to
perform common tasks or operations.
- User-defined Function: R language allow us to write our own
function.
Built-in Function in R Programming Language
Here we will use built-in functions like sum(), max() and min().
Example:
# Find sum of numbers 4 to 6.
print(sum(4:6))
# Find max of numbers 4 and 6.
print(max(4:6))
# Find min of numbers 4 and 6.
print(min(4:6))
User-defined Functions in R Programming Language
R provides built-in functions like print(), cat(), etc. but we can also
create our own functions. These functions are called user-defined
functions.
Example:
# A simple R function to check
# whether x is even or odd
evenOdd = function(x){
if(x %% 2 == 0)
return("even")
else
return("odd")
}
print(evenOdd(4))
print(evenOdd(3))
R Function Example – Single Input Single Output
Now create a function in R that will take a single input and
gives us a single output.
Following is an example to create a function that calculates the
area of a circle which takes in the arguments the radius. So, to
create a function, name the function as “areaOfCircle” and the
arguments that are needed to be passed are the “radius” of the
circle.
# A simple R function to calculate
# area of a circle
areaOfCircle = function(radius){
area = pi*radius^2
return(area)
}
print(areaOfCircle(2))
Output
12.56637
R Function Example – Multiple Input Multiple Output
Now create a function in R Language that will take multiple inputs
and gives us multiple outputs using a list.
The functions in R Language take multiple input objects but
returned only one object as output, this is, however, not a
limitation because you can create lists of all the outputs which you
want to create and once the list is created you can access them
into the elements of the list and get the answers which you want.
Let us consider this example to create a function “Rectangle”
which takes “length” and “width” of the rectangle and returns area
and perimeter of that rectangle. Since R Language can return only
one object. Hence, create one object which is a list that contains
“area” and “perimeter” and return the list.
# A simple R function to calculate
# area and perimeter of a rectangle
Rectangle = function(length, width){
area = length * width
perimeter = 2 * (length + width)
# create an object called result which is
# a list of area and perimeter
result = list("Area" = area, "Perimeter" = perimeter)
return(result)
}
resultList = Rectangle(2, 3)
print(resultList["Area"])
print(resultList["Perimeter"])
Output
$Area
[1] 6
$Perimeter
[1] 10
Passing Arguments to Functions in R Programming Language
There are several ways you can pass the arguments to the
function:
Case 1: Generally in R, the arguments are passed to the function in
the same order as in the function definition.
Case 2: If you do not want to follow any order what you can do is
you can pass the arguments using the names of the arguments in
any order.
Case 3: If the arguments are not passed the default values are
used to execute the function.
Now, let us see the examples for each of these cases in the
following R code:
# A simple R program to demonstrate
# passing arguments to a function
Rectangle = function(length=5, width=4){
area = length * width
return(area)
}
# Case 1:
print(Rectangle(2, 3))
# Case 2:
print(Rectangle(width = 8, length = 4))
# Case 3:
print(Rectangle())
Output
6
32
20
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