Introduction to R - r - learn r - r programming
- R name is based on the first letter of first name of the two R authors Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka.
- In general, R is a powerful language and software environment for statistical computing which runs on several platforms.
- These proceedings are specially written for users, it running on the Windows version, but most of the material applies to the Mac and Linux versions as well.
- R is greatest tool for software programmers, statisticians and data miners who seeing forward for to simply manipulate and present data in compelling ways.
- R was first created and developed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman in the University of Auckland New Zealand in 1993. And now R Development Core Team is developing it.
The R Language and Environment:
- R was first created and developed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Nobleman, and is now under active development by a group of statisticians called 'the R core team', with a home page at www.r-project.org
- R was designed to be 'not unlike' the S language developed by John Chambers and others at Bell Labs.
- A commercial version of S with additional features was developed and marketed as S-Plus by Statistical Sciences, which later became Insightful and is now TIBCO Spitfire.
- R and S-Plus can best be viewed as two implementations of the S language.
What is R
- "R is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics."
- "R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible."
- "One of R's strengths is the ease with which well-designed publication-quality plots can be produced, including mathematical symbols and formulae where needed."
Read Also
R ConstantUsing External Data
- R offers plenty of options for loading external data, including Excel, Minitab and SPSS files.
- We have included a tutorial titled Data Import on the subject for the purpose.
R Session
- After R is started, there is a console a waiting for input.
- At the prompt (>), you can enter numbers and perform calculations.
> 1 + 2
[1] 3
Variable Assignment
- We assign values to variables with the assignment operator "=". Just typing the variable by itself at the prompt will print out the value.
- We should note that another form of assignment operator "<-" is also in use.
> x = 1
> x
[1] 1
Functions
- R functions are invoked by its name, then followed by the parenthesis, and zero or more arguments.
- The following function c to combine three numeric values into a vector.
> c(1, 2, 3)
[1] 1 2 3
Comments
- All text after the pound sign "#" within the same line is considered a comment.
> 1 + 1 # this is a comment
[1] 2
Extension Package
- Sometimes we need additional functionality beyond those offered by the core R library.
- In order to install an extension package, you should invoke the install.packages function at the prompt and follow the instruction.
> install.packages()
Read Also
R DatabaseGetting Help
- R provides extensive documentation.
- For example, entering ?c or help(c) at the prompt gives documentation of the function c in R.
> help(c)
- If you are not sure about the name of the function, you can perform a fuzzy search with the apropos function.
>apropos("nova")
[1] "anova"
"anova.glm"
....
Uses of R:
- Social networking companies are using R to monitor their user knowledge.
- Newspapers companies are using R to create infographics and interactive data reporting applications.
Features of R:
- R is easy and real programming language which has been well developed, in addition to R is data analysis software.
- R provides highly extensible graphical methods.
- R graphical techniques for data analysis output either directly display on the computer, or can be print on paper.
- R has an effective data handling and storage facility.
- R is an online vibrant community.