EDS 221 Day 2 AM

Data types and 1d structures

August 11th, 2025

Review day 1: Code execution

What’s the value of x after you execute these commands?

What output would you see at the console?

x <- 10
x + 1
y <- x
y <- y * 2
x
y

Review day 1: Version control

Label the arrows in the following diagram with the corresponding git command.

Create a datasheet

Photo by Annabelle Lang/LSU College of Agriculture

Atomic types

There are four atomic types in R.

  • Character (text)
  • Double (decimal numbers)
  • Integer (round numbers)
  • Logical (true and false)

Atomic types are the basic building blocks of data structures in R.

Like the name implies, everything else is made out of them.

Coercion

Atomic vectors have to be one type. When you combine vectors of different types, one gets coerced into the other’s type.

From Hands on Programming with R

Making vectors

There are many ways to make vectors. Some of the most common are:

# Sequence operator
2:4
[1] 2 3 4
# c() function
c("Violet", "Cyan")
[1] "Violet" "Cyan"  
# Vector constructors
character(5)
[1] "" "" "" "" ""
double(5)
[1] 0 0 0 0 0
# Random number generators
rnorm(3, mean = 0, sd = 1)
[1] -1.1841031 -0.3077750 -0.3283373
rpois(4, lambda = 10)
[1]  5 11  6  8