R

• Programming language
• Statistics and data analysis environment

RStudio

• IDE - Integrated Development Environment
  • Interpreter/Console
  • Text editor
    • object highlighting
    • information about problems with code
    • tab key autocompletes
      • Let the computer do repetitious work.
      • It’s easier and with fewer mistakes.
  • Environment/History
  • Project management

Create new folder for scripts

Basic expressions

• Write code directly in the interpreter

2 + 5
4 * 2 / 3

• Write code in text editor and the run either by line or all code

2 + 5
4 * 2 / 3

Variables

• A variable is a name that has a value associated with it
  • Assign using <-

weight <- 26

• It works just like the value itself

double_weight <- weight * 2

• It won’t change unless you assign a new value to it directly

weight
weight * 2
weight
weight <- 22
weight

Assignments format

• Comment before each problem and each sub-problem

# Exercise 1

# 1.1
2 + 2

# 1.2
2 - 8

# Problem 2

width = 2
height = 3
length = 1.5
volume = width * height * length
volume

Create assignment script, put in new folder

Do Exercise 1 - Basic Expressions

Do Exercise 2 - Basic Variables

Functions

• A function is basically a complicated expression. It is a command that returns a value, but hides the details of how that value is determined. This is useful because we typically don’t want to look at the details of how numbers are rounded or lists of numbers are sorted.

abs(-2)

• A function call is composed of two parts, the name of the function and the arguments that the function requires to calculate the value it returns. In the example above abs() is the name of the function, and -2 is the argument.

• Functions can take multiple arguments. For example, if we want to round pi to two decimal places we would use the round function with the arguments 3.14159 and 2, where the first argument is the number to be rounded and the second argument is the number of decimal points to round it to.

round(3.14159, 2)

• Save the output of a function by assigning it to a variable

pi_approx <- round(3.14159, 2)
pi_approx

Do Exercise 4 - Built-in Functions