A brief introduction to R

Abstract

This first chapter introduces readers to the basics of R. It provides the minimum of information that is needed for running the calculations that are described in later chapters. The first section may cover most of what is immediately necessary. The rest of the chapter may be used as a reference. Chapter 14 extends this material considerably. Most of the R commands will run without change in S-PLUS. An overview of R A short R session R must be installed! An up-to-date version of R may be downloaded from a Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) mirror site. There are links at http://cran.r-project.org/. Installation instructions are provided at the web site for installing R in Windows, Unix, Linux, and version 10 of the Macintosh operating system. For most Windows users, R can be installed by clicking on the icon that appears on the desktop once the Windows setup program has been downloaded from CRAN. An installation program will then guide the user through the process. By default, an R icon will be placed on the user's desktop. The R system can be started by double-clicking on that icon. Various contributed packages extend the capabilities of R. A number of these are a part of the standard R distribution, but a number are not. Many data sets that are mentioned in this book have been collected into our DAAG package that is available from CRAN sites. This and other such packages can be readily installed, from an R session, via a live internet connection. Details are given below, immediately prior to Subsection 1.1.2.