datatypes.md

Basic data types in R

R works with numerous data types. Some of the most basic types to get started are:

Decimal values like 4.5 are called numerics. Whole numbers like 4 are called integers. Integers are also numerics. Boolean values (TRUE or FALSE) are called logical. Text (or string) values are called characters. Note how the quotation marks in the editor indicate that"some text" is a string.

Instructions

Change the value of the:

my_numeric variable to 42.

my_character variable to "universe". Note that the quotation marks indicate that "universe" is a character.

my_logical variable to FALSE.

Note that R is case sensitive!

# Change my_numeric to be 42
my_numeric <- 42

# Change my_character to be "universe"
my_character <- "universe"

# Change my_logical to be FALSE
my_logical <- FALSE

What's that data type?

When you add 5 + "six", you get an error due to a mismatch in data types? You can avoid such embarrassing situations by checking the data type of a variable beforehand. You can do this with the class() function, as the code below shows.

Instructions

Complete the code and also print out the classes of my_character and my_logical.

# Declare variables of different types
my_numeric <- 42
my_character <- "universe"
my_logical <- FALSE 

# Check class of my_numeric
class(my_numeric)

# Check class of my_character
class(my_character)

# Check class of my_logical
class(my_logical)

Answer

> my_numeric <- 42
> my_character <- "universe"
> my_logical = FALSE
> class(my_numeric)
[1] "numeric"
> class(my_character)
[1] "character"
> class(my_logical)
[1] "logical"

After Data types, We are going to learn about Vectors