R Constant | Variables & Constants - r - learn r - r programming
Variables in R
- Variables are used to store data, whose value can be changed according to our need.
- Unique name given to variable (function and objects as well) is identifier.
Rules for writing Identifiers in R
- Identifiers can be a combination of letters, digits, period (.) and underscore (_).
- It must start with a letter or a period. If it starts with a period, it cannot be followed by a digit.
- Reserved words in R cannot be used as identifiers.
Valid identifiers in R
total, Sum, .fine.with.dot, this_is_acceptable, Number5Invalid identifiers in R
tot@l, 5um, _fine, TRUE, .0ne
Read Also
C++ Global VariableBest Example:
- Earlier versions of R used underscore (_) as an assignment operator. So, the period (.) was used extensively in variable names having multiple words.
- Current versions of R support underscore as a valid identifier but it is good practice to use period as word separators.
- For example, a.variable.name is preferred over a_variable_name or alternatively we could use camel case as aVariableName
Constants in R
- Constants are entities whose value cannot be altered. Basic types of constant are numeric constants and character constants.
Numeric Constants
- Numbers can be of type integer, double or complex.
- It can be checked with the typeof() function.
- Numeric constants followed by L are regarded as integer and those followed by i are regarded as complex.
>typeof(5)
[1] "double"
>typeof(5L)
[1] "integer"
>typeof(5i)
[1] "complex"
- Numeric constants preceded by 0x or 0X are interpreted as hexadecimal numbers.
>0xff
[1] 255
>0XF + 1
[1] 16Character Constants
- Character constants can be represented using either single quotes (') or double quotes (") as delimiters.
>'example'
[1] "example"
>typeof("5")
[1] "character"
Read Also
Golang ConstBuilt-in Constants
- Some of the built-in constants defined in R along with their values is shown below.
> LETTERS
[1] "A""B""C""D""E""F""G""H""I""J""K""L""M""N""O""P""Q""R""S"
[20] "T""U""V""W""X""Y""Z"
> letters
[1] "a""b""c""d""e""f""g""h""i""j""k""l""m""n""o""p""q""r""s"
[20] "t""u""v""w""x""y""z"
> pi
[1] 3.141593
> month.name
[1] "January""February""March""April""May""June"
[7] "July""August""September""October""November""December"
>month.abb
[1] "Jan""Feb""Mar""Apr""May""Jun""Jul""Aug""Sep""Oct""Nov""Dec"
- But it is not good to rely on these, as they are implemented as variables whose values can be changed.
> pi
[1] 3.141593
> pi <- 56
> pi
[1] 56