Intro to R

R is a language and an environment, that is good for analyzing data and creating rich graphics. To get started make sure you have R installed on your computer. The latest version of R is available at the Comprehensive R Archive Network.

When you start R, an interpreter window is launched. You can type commands into it, or cut and paste them from a document.

Use R as a Calculator

The easiest way to get started is to simply use R as a calculator. Type some numerical expressions into R and see what happens (or cut and paste the code below). The lines that start with "#" are comments do not get evaluated.

# how many seconds in a day?
24*60*60

# what is 2 to the power of 16?
2^16