Vector in R Explained – All about Vector in R

what is Vector in R:

In this tutorial we will learn about vector in R. The vector is the simplest way to store more than one value in R. The c function (mnemonic for concatenate or combine) allows you to quickly enter data into R.

Numeric Vector Example:

X <- c(1,-2,5.3,6,-20,4) # numeric vector
print(X) 

Output:

Character Vector Example:

Y <- c("one","two","three") # character vector
print(Y)

Output:

Logical Vector Example:

Z <- c(FALSE,TRUE,FALSE,FALSE,TRUE,FALSE) #logical vector
print(Z)

Output:

In vector, Objects should be of single data type. vector doesn’t accept multiple data type

Example :

W <- c(FALSE,1,-2.0,"two")
print(W)
mode(W)

Output:

In the above example, the object W has converted all the elements of different data type into character.

Accessing Vector Elements in R

Elements of a Vector in R are accessed using indexing. The [ ] brackets are used for indexing. Indexing starts with position 1. Giving a negative value in the index drops the element of that position from result. TRUE, FALSE or 0 and 1 can also be used for indexing.

# Accessing vector elements using position.
x <- c("Jan","Feb","Mar","April","May","June","July")
y <- x[c(2,3,6)]
print(y)


# Accessing vector elements using logical indexing.
v <- x[c(TRUE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,FALSE,TRUE,FALSE)]
print(v)


# Accessing vector elements using negative indexing.

t <- x[c(-2,-5)]

print(t)

When we execute the above code, it produces the following result −

Vector arithmetic operations(addition subtraction, multiplication and division) in R:

Two vectors of same length can be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided giving the result as a vector output.

# Create two vectors.
v1 <- c(1,2,4,5,7,11)
v2 <- c(12,4,3,8,1,21) 

# Vector addition.
add.result <- v1 v2
print(add.result) 

# Vector substraction.
sub.result <- v1-v2
print(sub.result) 

# Vector multiplication.
multi.result <- v1*v2
print(multi.result) 

# Vector division.
divi.result <- v1/v2
print(divi.result)

When we execute the above code, it produces the following result −

Vector element recycling in R

If we apply arithmetic operations to two vectors of unequal length, then the elements of the shorter vector are recycled to complete the operations.

v1 <- c(1,2,4,5,7,11)
v2 <- c(4,11)    # V2 becomes c(4,11,4,11,4,11) 
add.result <- v1 v2
print(add.result) 
sub.result <- v1-v2
print(sub.result)

When we execute the above code, it produces the following result −

Sorting a Vector in R

Elements in a vector can be sorted using the sort() function.

#numerical vector sort
v1 <- c(1,2,4,5,7,11)
sort(v1) # sorts in ascending order which is default
sort(v1,decreasing=TRUE) # sorts in descending order  

# Character vector sort
v2 <- c("Cherry","BlueBerry","Apple","Pineapple")
sort(v2) # sorts in Alphabetical order which is default
sort(v2,decreasing=TRUE) # sorts in Reverse Alphabetical order

When we execute the above code, it produces the following result −