R Tutorial for Beginners

R is a powerful programming language and environment primarily used for statistical computing and graphics.

I’ll explain you the important basic functions and data types in R along with easy to understand examples.

Basic Data Types

1. Numeric (double)

This data type represents real numbers and is the default type for storing numerical values.

# Numeric data type example
x <- 3.14
y <- 42.0

2. Integer

Integers are whole numbers without a fractional component.

# Integer data type example
z <- 10L # 'L' suffix indicates an integer

3. Character (string)

Character data type is used to represent text.

# Character data type example
name <- "John Doe"

4. Logical (Boolean)

Logical data type represents Boolean values `TRUE` or `FALSE`.

# Logical data type example
is_valid <- TRUE

5. Complex

Complex data type consists of two components: real and imaginary parts.

# Logical data type example
is_valid <- TRUE

Basic Functions

1. print()

Prints its argument.

# print() function example
print("Hello, World!")

2. c()

Concatenates its arguments.

# c() function example
numbers <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

3. seq()

Generates sequences of numbers.

# seq() function example
sequence <- seq(1, 10, by = 2) # Generates sequence from 1 to 10 by 2

4. rep()

Replicates values.

# rep() function example
repeated <- rep("hello", times = 3) # Repeats "hello" 3 times

5. length()

Returns the number of elements in a vector.

# length() function example
vec <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
length(vec) # Returns 5

6. sum()

Computes the sum of values.

# sum() function example
sum_of_values <- sum(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # Returns 15

7. mean()

Computes the mean of values.

# mean() function example
average <- mean(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # Returns 3

8. max() and min()

Return the maximum and minimum values respectively.

# max() and min() function examples
max_value <- max(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # Returns 5
min_value <- min(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) # Returns 1

These are just a few examples of basic functions and data types in R which are important to learn.

As we learn R further, I’ll will take you through a wide range of functions and data structures tailored to statistical analysis and data manipulation.