R Vectors

R vectors are the same as the arrays in C language which are used to hold multiple data values of the same type. One major key point is that in R the indexing of the vector will start from ‘1’ and not from ‘0’. We can create numeric vectors and character vectors as well. 

R – Vector

Types of R vectors

Vectors are of different types which are used in R. Following are some of the types of vectors:

Numeric vectors: Numeric vectors are those which contain numeric values such as integer, float, etc. 

R

# R program to create numeric Vectors

# creation of vectors using c() function.
v1<- c(4, 5, 6, 7)

# display type of vector
typeof(v1)

# by using 'L' we can specify that we want integer values.
v2<- c(1L, 4L, 2L, 5L)

# display type of vector
typeof(v2)

Output:

[1] "double"
[1] "integer"

Character vectors: Character vectors in R contain alphanumeric values and special characters. 

R

# R program to create Character Vectors

# by default numeric values
# are converted into characters
v1<- c('geeks', '2', 'hello', 57)

# Displaying type of vector
typeof(v1)

Output:

[1] "character"

Logical vectors: Logical vectors in R contain Boolean values such as TRUE, FALSE and NA for Null values. 

R

# R program to create Logical Vectors

# Creating logical vector
# using c() function
v1<- c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, NA)

# Displaying type of vector
typeof(v1)

Output:

[1] "logical"

Creating a vector

There are different ways of creating R vectors. Generally, we use ‘c’ to combine different elements together. 

R

# R program to create Vectors

# we can use the c function
# to combine the values as a vector.
# By default the type will be double
X<- c(61, 4, 21, 67, 89, 2)
cat('using c function', X, '\n')

# seq() function for creating
# a sequence of continuous values.
# length.out defines the length of vector.
Y<- seq(1, 10, length.out = 5)
cat('using seq() function', Y, '\n')

# use':' to create a vector
# of continuous values.
Z<- 2:7
cat('using colon', Z)

Output:

using c function 61 4 21 67 89 2 
using seq() function 1 3.25 5.5 7.75 10 
using colon 2 3 4 5 6 7

Length of R vector

R

# Create a numeric vector
x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

# Find the length of the vector
length(x)
# Create a character vector
y <- c("apple", "banana", "cherry")

# Find the length of the vector
length(y)
# Create a logical vector
z <- c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, TRUE)

# Find the length of the vector
length(z)

Output:

> length(x)
[1] 5

> length(y)
[1] 3

> length(z)
[1] 4

Accessing R vector elements

Accessing elements in a vector is the process of performing operation on an individual element of a vector. There are many ways through which we can access the elements of the vector. The most common is using the ‘[]’, symbol.

Note: Vectors in R are 1 based indexing unlike the normal C, python, etc format.

R

# R program to access elements of a Vector

# accessing elements with an index number.
X<- c(2, 5, 18, 1, 12)
cat('Using Subscript operator', X[2], '\n')

# by passing a range of values
# inside the vector index.
Y<- c(4, 8, 2, 1, 17)
cat('Using combine() function', Y[c(4, 1)], '\n')

Output:

Using Subscript operator 5 
Using combine() function 1 4 

Modifying a R vector

Modification of a Vector is the process of applying some operation on an individual element of a vector to change its value in the vector. There are different ways through which we can modify a vector: 

R

# R program to modify elements of a Vector

# Creating a vector
X<- c(2, 7, 9, 7, 8, 2)

# modify a specific element
X[3] <- 1
X[2] <-9
cat('subscript operator', X, '\n')

# Modify using different logics.
X[1:5]<- 0
cat('Logical indexing', X, '\n')

# Modify by specifying
# the position or elements.
X<- X[c(3, 2, 1)]
cat('combine() function', X)

Output:

subscript operator 2 9 1 7 8 2 
Logical indexing 0 0 0 0 0 2 
combine() function 0 0 0

Deleting a R vector

Deletion of a Vector is the process of deleting all of the elements of the vector. This can be done by assigning it to a NULL value. 

R

# R program to delete a Vector

# Creating a Vector
M<- c(8, 10, 2, 5)

# set NULL to the vector
M<- NULL
cat('Output vector', M)

Output:

Output vector NULL

Sorting elements of a R Vector

sort() function is used with the help of which we can sort the values in ascending or descending order. 

R

# R program to sort elements of a Vector

# Creation of Vector
X<- c(8, 2, 7, 1, 11, 2)

# Sort in ascending order
A<- sort(X)
cat('ascending order', A, '\n')

# sort in descending order
# by setting decreasing as TRUE
B<- sort(X, decreasing = TRUE)
cat('descending order', B)

Output:

ascending order 1  2  2  7  8 11
descending order 11  8  7  2  2  1