Basic of R Programming

UNIT 13 BASICS OF RPROGRAMMING

Structure Page Nos.

13.0 Introduction
13.1 Objectives
13.2 Environment of R
13.3 Data types, Variables, Operators, Factors
13.4 Decision Making, Loops, Functions
13.5 Data Structures in R
13.5.1 Strings and Vectors
13.5.2 Lists
13.5.3 Matrices, Arrays and Frames
13.6 Summary
13.7 Answers

13.0 INTRODUCTION
This unit covers the fundamental concepts of R programming. The unit
familiarises with the environment of R and covers the details of the global
environment. It further discusses the various types of data that is associated
with every variable to reserve some memory space and store values in R. The
unit discusses the various types of the data objects known as factors and the
types of operators used in R programming. The unit also explains the
important elements of decision making, the general form of a typical
decision-making structures and the loops and functions. R’s basic data
structures including vector, strings, lists, frames, matrices and arrays would
also be discussed.

13.1
OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you will be able
to:
• explain and distinguish between the data types and assign them to
variables;
• explain about the different types of operators and the factors;
• explain the basics of decision making, the structure and the types of
loops;
• explain about the function- their components and the types;
• explain the data structures including vector, strings, lists, frames,
matrices, and arrays.

13.2 ENVIRONMENT OF R
R Programming language has been designed for statistical analysis of data. It
also has a very good support for graphical representation of data. It has a vast
set of commands. In this Block, we will cover some of the essential component
of R programming, which would be useful for you for the purpose of data
analysis. We will not be covering all aspects of this programming language;
therefore, you may refer to the further readings for more details.
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The discussion on R programming will be in the context of R-Studio, which is
an open-source software. You may try various commands listed in this unit to
facilitate your learning. The first important concept of R is its environment,
which is discussed next.
Environment can be thought of as a virtual space having collection of objects
(variables, functions etc.) An environment is created when you first hit the R
interpreter.
The top level environment present at R command prompt is the global
environment known as R_GlobalEnv, it can also be referred as .GlobalEnv.
You can use ls() command to know what variables/ functions are defined in the
working environment. You can even check it in the Environment section of R
Studio.

Figure 5.1: Environment with a variable in RStudio

Figure 5.2: Variables in Global Environment

In Figure 5.2, variables a, b and f are in R_GlobalEnv. Notice that x (as an
argument to the function) is not in the global environment. When you define a
function, a new environment is created. In Figure 5.1, a function f created a
new environment inside the Global environment.

13.3 DATA TYPES, VARIABLES,

OPERATORS, FACTORS

Every variable in R has an associated data type, which is known as the reserved
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memory. This reserved memory is needed for storing the values. Given below
is a list of basic data types available in R programming:
DATA TYPE Allowable Values
Integer Values from the Set of Integers, Z
Numeric Values from the Set of Real Numbers, R
Complex Values from the Set of Complex numbers, C

Logical Only allowable values are True ; False

Character Possible values are -“x”, “@”, “1”, etc.
Table 1: Basic Data Types

Numeric Datatype:
Decimal values are known to be numeric in R and is default datatype for any
number in R.

Whenever a number is stored in R, it gets converted into decimal type with at

least 2 decimal points or the “double” value. So, if you enter a normal integer
value also, for example 10, then R interpreter will convert it into double
i.e.
10.00. You can even confirm this by checking the type of the variable, as
given
belo
w:

is.integer() function returning FALSE confirms that the variable z is converted

into double or the decimal type.

Integer Datatype:
R supports integer data type, you can create an integer by suffixing “L” to
denote that particular variable as integer as well as convert a value to an integer
by passing the variable to as.integer() function.

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Logical Datatype:
R has a logical datatype which returns value as either TRUE or FALSE. It is
usually used while comparing two variables in a condition.

Complex Datatype:
Complex data types are also supported in R. These datatype includes the set of
all complex numbers.

Character Datatype:
R supports character datatype which includes alphabets and special characters.
We need to include the value of the character type inside single or double
inverted commas.

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VARIABLES:

A variable as discussed in the previous section, allocates a memory space and

stores the values, which can be manipulated. A valid variable name consists of
letters, numbers and dot or underline characters

Variable Name Valid Reason

var_name1. Valid Contains letters, number, dot and underscore

1var_name Invalid Starting with a number

Var_name@ Invalid Has special character (@). Only dot
and underscore is allowed.
.var_name, var.name Valid Can start with a dot, which is followed by an
alphabet.
_var_name Invalid Should not start with underscore.
.2var_name Invalid Dot is followed by a number and hence
invalid.

Variables Assignment: Variables can be assigned in multiple ways –

• Assignment (=): var1 = “Hello”
• Left (ß): var2 ß “, “
• Right (à): “How are you” à var3

OPERATORS:
As the case with other programming languages, R also supports assignment,
arithmetic, relational and logical operators. The logical operators of R include
element by element operations. In addition, several other operators are
supported by R, as explained in this section.

Arithmetic Operators:
• Addition (+): The value at the corresponding positions in the vectors are
added. Please note the difference with C programming, as you are
adding a complete vector using a single operator.
• Subtraction (-): The value at the corresponding positions are subtracted.
Once again please note that single operator performs the task of subtract-
ing elements of two vectors.
• Multiplication (*): The value at the corresponding positions are multi-
plied.

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• Division (/): The value at the corresponding positions are divided.
• Power (^): The first vector is raised to the exponent (power) of the sec-
ond.
• Modulo (%%): The remainder after dividing the two will be returned.

Logical Operators:

• Element-wise Logical AND Operator (&): If both the corresponding

op- erands are true, then this operator returns the Boolean value
TRUE for that element. Please note the difference with C
programming, in which it is a bitwise AND operator, whereas in R it
is an element wise AND operator.
• Element-wise Logical OR Operator (|): If either of the corresponding
op- erands are TRUE, then this operator returns the Boolean value
TRUE for that element.
• Not Operator (!): This is a unary operator that is used to negate the
oper- and.
• Logical AND Operator (&&): If the first element of both the operand are
TRUE, then this operator returns the Boolean value TRUE.
Logical OR Operator (||): If either of the first elements of the
operands are true, then this operator returns Boolean value TRUE.

Relational Operators:

The relational operators can take scalar or vector operands. In case of vector
operands comparison is done element by element and a vector of
TRUE/FALSE values is returned.
• Less than (<): If an element of the first operand (scalar or vector) is less
than that the corresponding element of the second operand, then this op-
erator returns Boolean value TRUE.

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• Less than Equal to (<=): If every element in the first operand or vector
is less than or equal to the corresponding element of the second
operand, then this operator returns Boolean value TRUE.
• Greater than (>): If every element in the first operand or vector is
greater than that the corresponding element of the second operand, then
this op- erator returns Boolean value TRUE.
• Greater than (>=): If every element in the first operand or vector is
greater than or equal to the corresponding element of the second
operand, then this operator returns Boolean value TRUE.
• Not equal to (!=): If every element in the first operand or vector is not
equal to the corresponding element of the second operand, then this op-
erator returns Boolean value TRUE.
• Equal to (==): If every element in the first operand or vector is equal to
the corresponding element of the second operand, then this operator re-
turns Boolean value TRUE.

Assignment Operators:
• Left Assignment (ß or <<-or =): Used for assigning value to a vector.
• Right Assignment (-> or ->>): Used for assigning value to a vector.

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Miscellaneous Operators:

• %in% operator: It determines whether a data element is contained in

a list and returns a Boolean value TRUE if the element is found to
exist.
• Colon(:) Operator: It prints a list of elements from before the colon
to after the colon.
• %*% Operator: It helps in multiplying a matrix with its transpose.

FACTORS:
Factors are the data objects are used for categorizing and further storing the
data as levels. They store both, strings and integer values. Factors are useful in
the columns that have a limited number of unique values also known to be
categor- ical variable. They are useful in data analysis for statistical modelling.
For ex- ample, a categorical variable employment types – (Unemployed, Self-
Em- ployed, Salaried, Others) can be represented using factors. More details on
fac- tors can be obtained from the further readings.
Check Your Progress
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1. What are various Operators in R?
……………………………………………………………………………

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 Basic of R Programming
2. What does %*% operator do?
…………………………………………………………………………….

………………………………………………………………………………
3. Is .5Var a valid variable name? Give reason in support of your
answer.
………………………………………………………………………………

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13.4 DECISION MAKING, LOOPS, FUNCTIONS

Decision making requires the programmer to specify one or more conditions
which will be evaluated or tested by the program, along with the statements to
be executed if the condition is determined to be true, and optional statements
to be executed if the condition is determined to be false.
Given below is the general form of a typical decision making structure found
in most of the programming languages–

If
Condition condition
is true If
conditi
on is
false

Conditional code

The format of if statement in R is as follows:

if (conditional statement, may include relational and logical operator) {
R statements to be executed, if the conditional statement is true
}
else {

R statements to be executed, if the conditional statement is FALSE

}
You may use else if instead of else
LOOPS:

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A loop is defined as a situation where we need to execute a block of code
several number of times. In the case of loops, the statements are executed
sequentially.

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Basics of R Programming

Conditional code

If condition
Condition is true

If condition
is false

Loop Type and Description:

• Repeat loop: Executes sequence of statements multiple times.
• While loop: Repeat a given statement while the given condition is
true, executes before executing the loop body.
Synta
x:

Example:

• For loop: Like while statement, executes the test condition at the end of
the loop body.

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Syntax:

Example:

Loop Control Statements:

• Break Statements: Terminates the loop statement and execute
the statements immediately below the loop.

FUNCTIONS:
A function refers to a set of instructions that is required to execute a command
to achieve a task in R. There are several built-in functions available in R.
Further, users may create a function basis their requirements.
Definition:
A function can be defined as:

function_name<- function(arg_1, arg_2, ...) {

Function body
}

Function Components
• Function Name: Actual name of the function.
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Basics of R Programming
• Arguments: Passed when the function is invoked. They are optional.
• Function Body: statements that define the logic of the function.
• Return value: last expression of the function to be executed.

Built-in function: Built in functions are the functions already written and is ac-
cessible just by calling the function name. Some examples are seq(), mean(),
min(), max(), sqrt(), paste() and many more.

13.5 Data Structures in

R

R’s basic data structures include Vector, Strings, Lists, Frames, Matrices
and
Array
s.

13.5.1 Strings and

Vectors
Vector
s:
A vector is a one-dimensional array of data elements that have same data
type. The most basic data structure are the Vectors, which supports logical,

Rules Applied in String Construction

• The quotes at the beginning and end of a string should be either both
double quotes or both single quote. They cannot be mixed.
• Double quotes can be inserted into a string starting and ending with sin-
gle quote.
• Single quote can be inserted into a string starting and ending with
double quotes.
• Double quotes cannot be inserted into a string starting and ending with
double quotes.
• Single quote cannot be inserted into a string starting and ending with
single quote.
Length of String: The length of strings tells the number of characters in a
string. The inbuilt function nchar() or function str_length() of the stringr
package can be used to get the length of the string.
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String Manipulations:
• Substring: Accessing the different portions of the strings. The 2 inbuilt
functions present for this is substr() or substring() to extract the sub-
strings.
• Case Conversion: The characters of the string can be converted to
upper or the lower case by using toupper() or tolower().
• Concatenation: The strings in R can be combined by using the paste()
function. It can concatenate any number of strings together. For exam-
ple, paste(..., sep = " ", collapse = NULL)where x is vector having val-
ues, sep: is a separator symbol that is used to separate elements& col-
lapse gives value to collapse.

13.5.2 Lists

Lists are the objects in R that contains different types of objects within itself
like number, string, vectors or even another list, matrix or any function as its
element It is created by calling list() function.

13.5.3 Matrices, Arrays and Frames

Matrices are R objects which are arranged in 2-D layout. They contain element
of same type. The basic syntax of creating a matrix in R is:
matrix(data, nrow, ncol, byrow, dimnames), where data is the name of input
vector, nrow is no of rows, ncol is no of columns, byrow is to specify either
row matrix or column matrix and dimnameis the name assigned to rows and
columns.

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Accessing the elements of the matrix: Elements of a matrix can be

accessed by specifying the row and column number.

Matrix Manipulations:
Mathematical operations can be performed on the matrix like addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division. You may please note that matrix
division is not defined mathematically, but in R each element of a matrix is
divided by the corresponding element of other matrix.

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Arrays:
An array is a data object in R that can store multi-dimensional data that have
the same data type. It is used using the array() function and can accept vectors
as an input. An array is created using the values passed in the dim parameter.
For instance, an array is created with dimensions (2,3,5); then R would create 5
rectangular matrices comprising of 2 rows and 3 columns each. However, the
data elements in each of the array will be of the same data type.

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Accessing Array Elements:

Dataframe:
A data frame represents a table or a structure similar to an array with two
dimensions It can be interpreted as matrices where each column of that matrix
can be of different data types.
The characteristics of a data frame are given as follow
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 Basic of R Programming
• The names of the columns should not be left blank
• The row names should be unique.
• The data frame can contain elements with numeric, factor or
character data type
• Each column should contain same number of data items.

Statistical summary of the dataframe can be fetched using summary() function.

Extracting specific data from data frame by specifying the column name.

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Basics of R Programming
Expanding the data frame by Adding additional column.

To add more rows permanently to an existing data frame, we need to bring in

the new rows in the same structure as the existing data frame and use
the rbind() function.

Check Your Progress 2

1. Why are Matrices data structure not used that often?
…………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………

2. What are the different data structures in R? Briefly explain about them.
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3. What is the function used for adding datasets in R?

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13.6 SUMMARY

The unit introduces you to the basics of R programming. It explains about the
environment of R, a virtual space having collection of objects and how a new
environment can be created within the global environment. The unit also
explains about the various types of data associated with the variables that
allocates a memory space and stores the values that can be manipulated. It also
gives the details of the five types of operators in R programming. It also
explains about factors that are the data objects used for organizing and storing
the data as levels. The concept of decision making is also been discussed in
detail that requires the programmer to specify one or more conditions to be
evaluated or tested by the program. The concept of loops and their types has
also been defined in this unit. It gives the details of function in R that is a set of
instructions that is required to execute a a command to achieve a task in R.
There are several built- in functions available in R. Further, users may create a
function basis their requirements. The concept of matrices, arrays, dataframes
etc have also been discussed in detail.

13.7 ANSWERS
Check Your Progress 1

1. The various operators in R are Arithmetic, Relational, Logical,

assignment and Miscellaneous Operators. All of the above briefly explained
in section 5.3

2. %*% Operator: It helps in multiplying a matrix with its transpose.

3. .5Var is an Invalid variable name as the dot is followed by a number

Check Your Progress 2

1. Matrices are not used much often as they contains only one data
type and that too usually character or logical values.
2. Various Data Structures in R:

Data Structure Description

Vector A vector is a one-dimensional array of data

elements that have same data type. These data
elements in a vector are referred to as components.

List Lists are the R objects which contain elements of

different types like- numbers, strings, vectors or
another list inside it.

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Matrix A matrix is a two-dimensional

data structure. Matrices are used to
bind vectors from the same
length. All the elements of a
matrix must have the same data
type, i.e. (numeric, logical,
character, complex).
Dataframe A dataframe is more generic than
a matrix, i.e. different columns can
have different data types (numeric,
logical etc). It combines features
of matrices and lists like a
rectangular list.

3. Rbind() is the function used to add datasets in R.

13.8 REFERENCES AND FURTHER READINGS

1. De Vries, A., & Meys, J. (2015). R for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
2. Peng, R. D. (2016). R programming for data science (pp. 86-181). Victoria, BC,
Canada: Leanpub.
3. Schmuller, J. (2017). Statistical Analysis with R For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons.
4. Field, A., Miles, J., & Field, Z. (2012). Discovering statistics using R. Sage publications.
5. Lander, J. P. (2014). R for everyone: Advanced analytics and graphics. Pearson
Education.
6. Lantz, B. (2019). Machine learning with R: expert techniques for predictive modeling.
Packt publishing ltd.
7. Heumann, C., & Schomaker, M. (2016). Introduction to statistics and data analysis.
Springer International Publishing Switzerland.
8. Davies, T. M. (2016). The book of R: a first course in programming and statistics. No
Starch Press.
9. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/r/index.html

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