R - Data Types
One of the most important parts of learning any programming language is to understand what are the available data types, and how data is stored, accessed and manipulated in that language. In R, different types of data can be stored using variables.
In R, there are six basic data types which are categorized below:
- Integer
- Numeric
- Complex
- Logical
- Character
- Raw
In R, when a variable is assigned with a R-Object, the data type of the R-object becomes the data type of the variable.
R Basic Data Types
The table
| Data Types | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Integer | 10L, 55L | L tells R to store the value as an integer. |
| Numeric | 10, 10.5 | It is the default computational data type in R. |
| Complex | 1+2i, 5-3i | Here, i is used to define imaginary part. |
| Logical | TRUE, FALSE | Represents boolean values. It has only two possible values - true/false. |
| Character | "Hello", "FALSE", "Hi All", "10.5" | Represents the string value. |
| Raw | A raw data type is used to holds raw bytes. |
Example:
The R class() function can be used to check the data type of a variable:
#Integer Data type
var_integer <- 55L
cat("var_integer:", var_integer,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_integer:", class(var_integer),"\n\n")
#Numeric Data type
var_numeric <- 10.5
cat("var_numeric:", var_numeric,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_numeric:", class(var_numeric),"\n\n")
#Complex Data type
var_complex <- 1+2i
cat("var_complex:", var_complex,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_complex:", class(var_complex),"\n\n")
#Logical Data type
var_logical <- TRUE
cat("var_logical:", var_logical,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_logical:", class(var_logical),"\n\n")
#Character Data type
var_character <- "Hello World"
cat("var_character:", var_character,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_character:", class(var_character),"\n\n")
#Raw Data type
var_raw <- charToRaw("Hello World")
cat("var_raw:", var_raw,"\n")
cat("Data type of var_raw:", class(var_raw),"\n\n")
The output of the above code will be:
var_integer: 55 Data type of var_integer: integer var_numeric: 10.5 Data type of var_numeric: numeric var_complex: 1+2i Data type of var_complex: complex var_logical: TRUE Data type of var_logical: logical var_character: Hello World Data type of var_character: character var_raw: 48 65 6c 6c 6f 20 57 6f 72 6c 64 Data type of var_raw: raw
