First steps in R

by R-Tutorials Training

1. Download of R and R Studio

2. RStudio Orientation
3. Packages

4. Help Functionalities
help.start()
?hist
apropos("hist")
example(hist)
vignette()
# shows supporting material
vignette("grid")

5. R as a giant calculator
4+ 4+

- space does not matter

- operators: +,-,*,/
5+6-4/2*5

- assign values to objects

x <- c(4,5,6)
c(4,5,76) -> y
y
x = c(4,5,6)
assign("x", c(4.2,1,5))
- c stands for "concatenate" - important command for vectors
creation

- see which objects are already occupied

ls()
objects()

- remove objects
rm("x")

- some vector calculus examples

x = c(y, 5, y)
objectrandom <- x < 5
objectrandom

sum(x)

sqrt(x)

- to see which value this position has

x[1]

6. Types of brackets

() round brackets as the standard brackets

[] box brackets if we are dealing with index positions of vectors
{} curled brackets for functions and loops

7. Data Sequences

seq(3, 5)

seq(from = 3, to = 5)

seq(from = 3, length =3)

seq(from = 3, length = 3, by = 0.5)

seq(from = 3, by = 0.5, length = 3)

- argument order does not matter

o paste Function - characters

paste ("xyz", 1:10)

paste ("xyz", c(2,5,7,"test", 4.5))
paste ("xyz", 1:10, sep = "")

What do you think this can be useful for?

o to repeat sequences

rep(c(3,4,5) , 3)
rep(1:10, times = 3)
x <- c(1,2,3)
rep(x, each = 3)
rep(x, each = 3, times = 3)

o knowing the position

x = c(4:20)

which(x == 10) # note the 2 equal signs, used for logical operations

o reverse of
x[3]

Exercises - Coding Basics

1. Define the object "myobject" and assign the vector 1:10 in at least 3
different ways

2. Get the sum of your object

3. Create the following vector by using the paste function

- [1] "R is great 4 and I will love it"
- [2] "R is great 7 and I will love it"
- [3] "R is great 45 and I will love it"

4. vector of 1,2,3, repeat the vector to get 11 x 1, 10 x 2, and 10 x 3

5. What is the value of this vector on position 7 ?

Solutions

1. Define the object "myobject" and assign the vector 1:10 in at least 3
different ways

myobject <- (1:10)

myobject = (1:10)
(1:10) -> myobject
assign("myobject", 1:10)

2. Get the sum of your object

sum (myobject)

3. Create the following vector by using the paste function

- [1] "R is great 4 and I will love it"
- [2] "R is great 7 and I will love it"
- [3] "R is great 45 and I will love it"

paste ("R is great", c(4,7,45), "and I will love it")

4. vector of 1, 2, 3, repeat the vector to get 11 x 1, 10 x 2, and 10 x 3

x=rep(1:3, length = 31)

5. What is the value of this vector on position 7 ?

x[7]

8. New Datasets

R has the preinstalled package "datasets"

in this package you can find many test datasets for exercise
purpose

?lynx
head(lynx)
head(iris)
tail(lynx)
summary(lynx)

o to get a visual idea

plot(lynx)
hist(lynx)

o those datasets are dataframes - 2 dimensional objects with

different data types

o work with subsets of those dataframes: $

head(iris)
sum(iris$Sepal.Length)

o or we can use the attach argument to make handling this set easier
attach(iris)
sum(Sepal.Length)

9. Functions in R

Brief description: R functions are OBJECTS

They do calculations for you

R function structure: name <- function (argument) {statements}

The arguments specify the components to be used in the function

myfirstfn <- function(x) {x+x}

myfirstfn(10)

o stepwise working functions

mysecondfn <- function(t,z) {

value = z*3
value = value *t
print(value)}

t= 5
z= 9

mysecondfn(t,z)

10.
Loops - loops and functions are a crucial part in
programming

FOR loops allow a certain operation to be repeated a fixed nr of

times
This is opposed to the While loop where the rep nr is not prefixed
The syntax looks like this: for (name in vector) {commands}

for (i in 1:15) {print (i)}

for (z in 1:15) {print (z)}
o variable name does not matter although you will see i quite often

Can be used for quite complex calculations

Example calculation of primes with the Eratosthenes method (the
oldest known systematic method)
PrimVec = function(n){
# to start from 2
if (n>=2) {
# to further specify the sequence we want to work with
s = seq(2,n)
# p will be the container for our primes,
# numbers will be moved from s to p step by step if they meet the
criteria
p = c()
# we start the loop
for (i in seq(2,n)){

# we use any to check that i (of this loop round) is still in s, multiples of i
will be removed
if(any(s==i)){
# we store i if it meets our criteria in p together with the previous p
p = c(p,i)
# to search for numbers with a remainder at modulus division
s = c(s[(s%%i) != 0],i)
}}
return(p) }
# to specify the output if n < 2 (optional)
else{
stop("Input at least 2")
}}
PrimVec(100)

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11.

Graphs in R

many different types are available

different packages can help you
easiest way: scatterplot
x=5:7
y=8:10
plot(x,y)

or by using a dataset
plot(lynx)
plot(lynx, main="Lynx Trappings", col="red",
col.main=52, cex.main=1.5)
o the cex family can be used to change magnification factors

handling the labs

plot(lynx, ylab="Lynx Trappings", xlab="")
plot(lynx, ylab="Lynx Trappings", xlab="", las=2)
o changing the scale direction

 las - 0:3, axis labels orientation

par(mfrow=c(2,2), col.axis="red")

plot(1:8, las=0, xlab="xlab", ylab="ylab", main="LAS = 0")

plot(1:8, las=1, xlab="xlab", ylab="ylab", main="LAS = 1")

plot(1:8, las=2, xlab="xlab", ylab="ylab", main="LAS = 2")

plot(1:8, las=3, xlab="xlab", ylab="ylab", main="LAS = 3")

colors
colors() # huge variety

 point symbol types

?pch
x=2:4
plot(x, pch="c")
plot(x, pch=13)

Line Types
par(mfrow=c(1,1), col.axis="black")
library(plotrix)
plot(1:6, ylab="", main="Line Types lty 1:6", xlab="lty 1:6")
ablineclip(v=1, lty=1, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=2, lty=2, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=3, lty=3, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=4, lty=4, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=5, lty=5, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=6, lty=6, col="sienna2", lwd=2)
ablineclip(v=7, lty=0, col="sienna2", lwd=2)

 Types of plots
o by using "type" we can specify which kind of plot we want

plot(lynx) # plot for time series data

plot(lynx, type="p", main="Type p") # points (default)
plot(lynx, type="l", main="Type l") # lines (default for time series)
plot(lynx, type="b", main="Type b") # points connected by lines
plot(lynx, type="o", main="Type o") # points overlaid by lines
plot(lynx, type="h", main="Type h") # high density
plot(lynx, type="s", main="Type s") # steps
plot(lynx, type="n", main="Type n") # no plot

Example: by skilled usage of all the available parameters you can create
quite complex graphs
par(mar=c(4,3,3,3), col.axis="black")
plot(cars$speed, type="s", col="red", bty="n", xlab="Cars ID", ylab="")
text(8, 14, "Speed in mph", cex=0.85, col="red") # this adds the
explanatory text to plot 1
par(new=T) # allows 2 in one plot

plot(cars$dist, type="s", bty="n", ann=F, axes=F, col="darkblue")

axis(side=4) # y axis for plot 2
text(37, 18, "Stopping distance in ft", cex=0.85, col="darkblue") #
explanations to plot 2
title(main="Speed and Stopping\n Distances of Cars")

graphical parameters
par()
?par

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12.

How to export your graphs

13.

Alternative graphs packages and some examples

Exercise - R Graphs

Get familiar with the "rivers" dataset

-

find out how many observations there are

plot rivers against the index
name labels and header(red)
choose an appropriate symbol (not default) in green

# hint: \n for new lines in text

Solution

?rivers
x = 1:141
y= rivers
plot(x,y, col = "green", pch = 20,
main = "Lengths of\nMajor N. American Rivers",
col.main ="red", xlab = "",
ylab = "length in miles")