Abstract
R is a system for statistical computing and graphing. It consists of a language and a software environment. R has been widely used for academic and research purposes and is increasingly being deployed in corporate environments. R is a freely available software, under a GNU license, and is supported by the R Development Core Team. The strength of R is its extensibility through the packages developed by the community of R users, available through the CRAN repository, where support is also given. Furthermore, it is available for a wide range of platforms, including Windows, Mac, and Linux. In this chapter, we explain the basic background to help readers get used to R.
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Notes
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An article in the New York Times in January 2009 surprised many professionals and was a milestone in R’s surging popularity (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html).
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If you choose SDI (simple document interface) in the custom installation, you only get the R Console with the menu bar. You can run the SDI or the MDI (multiple document interface) by adding the option --sdi or --mdi, respectively, to the command line in the shortcut icon properties, e.g., C:∖R∖R-2.14.1∖bin∖i386∖Rgui.exe --sdi.
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There are some easy-to-use graphical alternatives to some R functions (Sect. 2.8). They can be useful when migrating from other systems to R, but we recommend using the R Console and scripting facilities as much as possible to exploit R’s possibilities.
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When INTRO is pressed before a command is completed (for example, if a closing bracket ‘)’ is expected), then the prompt symbol changes to +. This is sometimes annoying when learning R and usually indicates a mistake. Simply press the Esc key to return to the prompt symbol.
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Do not worry about what it means for the moment, just type it.
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The shape of the histogram may be slightly different due to the randomness of the data.
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The working directory will not change.
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A server on the Internet where you can download the package from.
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Though the browser opens, the documentation is in the computer, not on the Internet.
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A temporary space to save information and assign a name.
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See next section to find out what the $ symbol is for.
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It requires Java in the Operating System, and package RJava in R.
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Type ?matrix to see the documentation.
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There is a very good post explaining all the processes at http://www.r-bloggers.com/getting-started-with-sweave-r-latex-eclipse-statet-texlipse/.
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Cano, E.L., Moguerza, J.M., Redchuk, A. (2012). R from the Beginning. In: Six Sigma with R. Use R!, vol 36. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3652-2_2
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