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Vectors

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Vector Basics

Vector Basics

There are two types of vectors:

  1. Atomic vectors, of which there are different types: logical, integer, double, character, complex, and raw.
  2. Lists, which are sometimes called recursive vectors because lists can contain other lists.

NULL is often used to represent the absence of a vector (a vector of length 0) (as opposed to NA which is used to represent the absence of a value in a vector).

Every vector has two key properties:

  1. Its type, which you can determine with typeof() / class.

    typeof(letters)
#> [1] "character"
class(letters)
#> [1] "character"
typeof(1:10)
#> [1] "integer"
class(1:10)
#> [1] "integer"

  2. Its length, which you can determine with length().

    (x <- list("a", "b", 1:10))
#> [[1]]
#> [1] "a"
#> 
#> [[2]]
#> [1] "b"
#> 
#> [[3]]
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
length(x)
#> [1] 3
typeof(x)
#> [1] "list"
class(x)
#> [1] "list"

Logical

1:10 %% 3 == 0
#>  [1] FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE, NA)
#> [1]  TRUE FALSE  TRUE    NA
typeof(1:10 %% 3 == 0)
#> [1] "logical"
length(1:10 %% 3 == 0)
#> [1] 10

Numeric

typeof(1)
#> [1] "double"
# sees this as integer - maybe because of the list of values, it can infer
# type better?
typeof(1:10) 
#> [1] "integer"
typeof(1L) # the L specifically changes it to an integer
#> [1] "integer"
typeof(1.5L)
#> [1] "double"
typeof(1L:10L)
#> [1] "integer"
1L:10L
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

Doubles are approximations!

(x <- sqrt(2) ^ 2)
#> [1] 2
x - 2
#> [1] 0.0000000000000004440892

Integers have one special value: NA, while doubles have four: NA, NaN, Inf and -Inf.

c(-1, 0, 1) / 0
#> [1] -Inf  NaN  Inf

Avoid using == to check for these other special values. Instead use the helper functions is.finite(), is.infinite(), and is.nan():

0 Inf NA NaN
is.finite() x
is.infinite() x
is.na() x x
is.nan() x

Character

R uses a global string pool. This means that each unique string is only stored in memory once.

x <- "This is a reasonably long string"
pryr::object_size(x)
#> 152 B
y <- rep(x, 1000)
pryr::object_size(y)
#> 8.14 kB
# 8 byte pointers x 1000 to a 152B string
# I am not exactly getting to the same amt but it's close
# the bytes that make a kB is either 1000 or 1024
# I get close if I use the calc below BUT that is completely
# NOT consistent so I am probably incorrect here!!
(8*1000)/1000 + 152/1024
#> [1] 8.148438

Missing values

Each type of atomic vector has its own missing value.

NA            # logical
#> [1] NA
NA_integer_   # integer
#> [1] NA
NA_real_      # double
#> [1] NA
NA_character_ # character
#> [1] NA

Exercises

  1. Describe the difference between is.finite(x) and !is.infinite(x).

    • is.finite(x) tests if each element in the vector is finite.

    • is.infinite(x) tests if each element in the vector is Inf / -Inf. The ! in front of is.infinite(x) asks each element of the vector - “Are you NOT Inf / -Inf?”.

      • Hey -1/0 are you NOT Inf/-Inf? To which -1/0 replies FALSE, I am indeed -Inf!
      • Hey 0/0 are you NOT Inf/-Inf? To which 0/0 replies TRUE, I am not Inf/-Inf I am NaN!
      • Hey 1/0 are you NOT Inf/-Inf? To which 1/0 replies FALSE, I am indeed Inf!

    Help Page:

    is.finite returns a vector of the same length as x the jth element of which is TRUE if x[j] is finite (i.e., it is not one of the values NA, NaN, Inf or -Inf) and FALSE otherwise. Complex numbers are finite if both the real and imaginary parts are.

    is.infinite returns a vector of the same length as x the jth element of which is TRUE if x[j] is infinite (i.e., equal to one of Inf or -Inf) and FALSE otherwise.

    is.finite(c(-1, 0, 1) / 0)
#> [1] FALSE FALSE FALSE
!is.infinite(c(-1, 0, 1) / 0)
#> [1] FALSE  TRUE FALSE

  2. Read the source code for dplyr::near() (Hint: to see the source code, drop the ()). How does it work?

    dplyr::near
#> function (x, y, tol = .Machine$double.eps^0.5) 
#> {
#>     abs(x - y) < tol
#> }
#> <bytecode: 0x000000002cab63c0>
#> <environment: namespace:dplyr>

    It checks if two numbers are close to each other within some tolerance tol.

    dplyr::near(1, 1.1)
#> [1] FALSE
dplyr::near(1, 1.1, tol = 0.11)
#> [1] TRUE
dplyr::near(sqrt(2)^2, 2)
#> [1] TRUE
dplyr::near(4, 4 + 4.567342e-10)
#> [1] TRUE

  3. A logical vector can take 3 possible values. How many possible values can an integer vector take? How many possible values can a double take? Use google to do some research.

    From the help page ?integer: The range of representable integers is restricted to about +/-2*10^9.

    For doubles it is a bit more complicated to explain. Here is more information.

  4. Brainstorm at least four functions that allow you to convert a double to an integer. How do they differ? Be precise.

    Depending on the function used some of these drop the decimal part and just keep the integer part, other functions convert the double to the nearest integer.

    as.integer(2.678)
#> [1] 2
2.678 %/% 1
#> [1] 2
round(2.678, 0)
#> [1] 3
floor(2.678)
#> [1] 2
ceiling(2.678)
#> [1] 3
trunc(2.678)
#> [1] 2

  5. What functions from the readr package allow you to turn a string into logical, integer, and double vector?

    The different parse_ variants.

    readr::parse_integer(c("1", "2"))
#> [1] 1 2
readr::parse_double(c("2.45", "6.79"))
#> [1] 2.45 6.79
readr::parse_logical(c("TRUE", "FALSE", "NA", "1", "0", "3"))
#> Warning: 1 parsing failure.
#> row col           expected actual
#>   6  -- 1/0/T/F/TRUE/FALSE      3
#> [1]  TRUE FALSE    NA  TRUE FALSE    NA
#> attr(,"problems")
#> # A tibble: 1 x 4
#>     row   col expected           actual
#>   <int> <int> <chr>              <chr> 
#> 1     6    NA 1/0/T/F/TRUE/FALSE 3

Using atomic vectors

Using atomic vectors

Coercion

You can coerce in two ways.

  1. Explicitly using as.logical(), as.integer(), as.double(), or as.character(). But before explicitly coercing see if you can make the fix upstream, e.g. in your readr col_types specification.

  2. Implicitly when you use a vector in a specific context, e.g. when you use a logical vector with in sum for example the TRUE and FALSE are converted to 1 / 0 and added up.

    x <- sample(20, # sample from 1:20
            100, # get me a 100 of those
            replace = TRUE # repeats are welcome
            )
y <-  x > 10
sum(y) # how many greater than 10?
#> [1] 50
mean(y) # what proportion are greater than 10?
#> [1] 0.5

When you try and create a vector containing multiple types with c(), the most complex type always wins.

typeof(c(TRUE, 1L)) # most complex type = integer
#> [1] "integer"
typeof(c(1L, 1.5)) # most complex type = double
#> [1] "double"
typeof(c(1.5, "a")) # I can't convert "a" to a double, so 1.5 converted to char
#> [1] "character"

An atomic vector can not have a mix of different types because the type is a property of the complete vector, NOT the individual elements.

Test functions

Sometimes you want to do different things based on the type of vector and you may use Base R’s, typeof(),is.vector() etc. BUT these often return surprising results.
{purr}’s is_* functions provide a good alternative.

lgl int dbl chr list
is_logical() x
is_integer() x
is_double() x
is_numeric() x x
is_character() x
is_atomic() x x x x
is_list() x
is_vector() x x x x x

Scalars and recycling rules

R will also implicitly coerce the length of vectors by recycling, i.e. the shorter vector is repeated to the same length as the longer vector.

Generally this is useful when you are mixing vectors and “scalars” (a single number is a vector of length 1).

sample(10) + 100
#>  [1] 110 105 106 103 102 104 107 108 109 101
runif(10) > 0.5
#>  [1] FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE  TRUE  TRUE
# this is essentially as follows
# 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  +
# 1  2  1  2  1  2  1  2  1  2 
# -------------------------------
# 2  4  4  6  6  8  8  10  10 12
# the shorter vector (1,2) is recycled as many times as needed
1:10 + 1:2 
#>  [1]  2  4  4  6  6  8  8 10 10 12

The recycling is silent except when the length of the longer is not an integer multiple of the length of the shorter vector.

1:10 + 1:3
#> Warning in 1:10 + 1:3: longer object length is not a multiple of shorter object
#> length
#>  [1]  2  4  6  5  7  9  8 10 12 11

In tidyverse you will get errors when you recycle anything other than a “scalar” (length 1 vector). To recycle, you need to do it yourself with rep().

tibble(x = 1:4, y = 1:2)
#> Error: Tibble columns must have compatible sizes.
#> * Size 4: Existing data.
#> * Size 2: Column `y`.
#> i Only values of size one are recycled.
tibble(x = 1:4, y = rep(1:2, 2))
#> # A tibble: 4 x 2
#>       x     y
#>   <int> <int>
#> 1     1     1
#> 2     2     2
#> 3     3     1
#> 4     4     2
tibble(x = 1:4, y = rep(1:2, each = 2))
#> # A tibble: 4 x 2
#>       x     y
#>   <int> <int>
#> 1     1     1
#> 2     2     1
#> 3     3     2
#> 4     4     2

Naming vectors

You may name your vector items during creation with c().

c(x = 1, y = 2, z = 4)
#> x y z 
#> 1 2 4

Or use purrr::set_names():

set_names(1:3, c("a", "b", "c"))
#> a b c 
#> 1 2 3

Subsetting

To subset a vector use [. [ is the subsetting function.

  • Subsetting with positive integers keeps the elements at those positions:

    x <- c("one", "two", "three", "four", "five")
x[c(3, 2, 5)]
#> [1] "three" "two"   "five"

    Can also get longer output by repeating.

    x[c(1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 2)]
#> [1] "one"  "one"  "five" "five" "five" "two"

  • Negative values drop the elements at the specified positions.

    x[c(-1, -3, -5)]
#> [1] "two"  "four"

    It’s an error to mix positive and negative values.

    x[c(1, -1)]
#> Error in x[c(1, -1)]: only 0's may be mixed with negative subscripts

  • The error message mentions subsetting with zero, which returns no values.

    x[0]
#> character(0)

  • Subsetting with a logical vector keeps all values corresponding to a TRUE value. We use this often.

    x <- c(10, 3, NA, 5, 8, 1, NA)

# All non-missing values of x
x[!is.na(x)]
#> [1] 10  3  5  8  1

# All even (or missing!) values of x
x[x %% 2 == 0]
#> [1] 10 NA  8 NA

  • If you have a named vector, you can subset it with a character vector:

    x <- c(abc = 1, def = 2, xyz = 5)
x[c("xyz", "def")]
#> xyz def 
#>   5   2
x[c("xyz", "xyz", "abc", "abc")]
#> xyz xyz abc abc 
#>   5   5   1   1

  • The simplest type of subsetting is nothing, x[], which returns the complete x. Not useful for subsetting vectors, but useful when subsetting matrices E.g if x is 2d, x[1, ] selects the first row and all the columns, and x[, -1] selects all rows and all columns except the first.

  • There is an important variation of [ called [[. [[ only ever extracts a single element, and always drops names.

Exercises

  1. What does mean(is.na(x)) tell you about a vector x? What about sum(!is.finite(x))?

    • mean(is.na(x)) tells you the proportion that is NA
    • sum(!is.finite(x)) tells you how many non-finite entries are in your data
    mean(is.na(c(NA, 2, TRUE, 4, NA, NaN, Inf, -Inf))) # 3/8
#> [1] 0.375
sum(!is.finite(c(NA, Inf, 56, -Inf, 98.6, NaN)))
#> [1] 4

  2. Carefully read the documentation of is.vector(). What does it actually test for? Why does is.atomic() not agree with the definition of atomic vectors above?

    • is.atomic(x) returns TRUE if the vector is any of the types (“logical”, “integer”, “numeric”, “complex”, “character” and “raw”) and NULL.
    • is.vector(x) returns TRUE if x is a vector with no attributes other than names.
    # borrowed from help page of ?is.atomic
is_a_type <- function(x) c(vect = is.vector(x), atomic = is.atomic(x))
is_a_type(c(a = 1, b = 3))
#>   vect atomic 
#>   TRUE   TRUE
is_a_type(list(2)) # why? class not one of those listed - i.e. it is a list
#>   vect atomic 
#>   TRUE  FALSE
is_a_type(list(2, 4, "test"))
#>   vect atomic 
#>   TRUE  FALSE
typeof(list(2))
#> [1] "list"
x <- list(2, 4, "test")
attributes(x)
#> NULL

  3. Compare and contrast setNames() with purrr::set_names().

    setNames() purrr::set_names
    two args, vector + vector of names three args, vector + vector of names + …
    vector of names must be in c() vector of names can be in c() or individually specified
    NA Can be a function e.g. toupper
    If nm is NULL names removed If nm is NULL names removed
    If nm only specified, names match elements Error! Not allowed! x is mandatory
    If 1st arg only specified, error vector + names created out of 1st arg 
    purrr::set_names(1:4, c("a", "b", "c", "d"))
#> a b c d 
#> 1 2 3 4
purrr::set_names(1:4, letters[1:4])
#> a b c d 
#> 1 2 3 4
purrr::set_names(1:4, "a", "b", "c", "d")
#> a b c d 
#> 1 2 3 4
# If the second argument is omitted a vector is named with itself
purrr::set_names(letters[1:5])
#>   a   b   c   d   e 
#> "a" "b" "c" "d" "e"
# Alternatively you can supply a function
purrr::set_names(1:10, ~ letters[seq_along(.)])
#>  a  b  c  d  e  f  g  h  i  j 
#>  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
purrr::set_names(head(mtcars), toupper)
#>                    MPG CYL DISP  HP DRAT    WT  QSEC VS AM GEAR CARB
#> Mazda RX4         21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
#> Datsun 710        22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
#> Hornet 4 Drive    21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
#> Valiant           18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1
# If the input vector is unnamed, it is first named after itself
# before the function is applied:
purrr::set_names(letters, toupper)
#>   A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H   I   J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T 
#> "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f" "g" "h" "i" "j" "k" "l" "m" "n" "o" "p" "q" "r" "s" "t" 
#>   U   V   W   X   Y   Z 
#> "u" "v" "w" "x" "y" "z"
(mtcars_sub <- head(mtcars))
#>                    mpg cyl disp  hp drat    wt  qsec vs am gear carb
#> Mazda RX4         21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46  0  1    4    4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0   6  160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02  0  1    4    4
#> Datsun 710        22.8   4  108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61  1  1    4    1
#> Hornet 4 Drive    21.4   6  258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44  1  0    3    1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7   8  360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02  0  0    3    2
#> Valiant           18.1   6  225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22  1  0    3    1
purrr::set_names(mtcars_sub, nm = NULL)
#>                                                          
#> Mazda RX4         21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.620 16.46 0 1 4 4
#> Mazda RX4 Wag     21.0 6 160 110 3.90 2.875 17.02 0 1 4 4
#> Datsun 710        22.8 4 108  93 3.85 2.320 18.61 1 1 4 1
#> Hornet 4 Drive    21.4 6 258 110 3.08 3.215 19.44 1 0 3 1
#> Hornet Sportabout 18.7 8 360 175 3.15 3.440 17.02 0 0 3 2
#> Valiant           18.1 6 225 105 2.76 3.460 20.22 1 0 3 1

(tmp <- 1:3)
#> [1] 1 2 3
(tmp <- setNames(tmp, c("foo", "bar", "baz")))
#> foo bar baz 
#>   1   2   3
(tmp <- setNames(tmp, NULL))
#> [1] 1 2 3
(tmp <- setNames(nm=tmp))
#> 1 2 3 
#> 1 2 3
tmp <- setNames(tmp)
#> Error in setNames(tmp): argument "nm" is missing, with no default

  4. Create functions that take a vector as input and returns:

    1. The last value. Should you use [ or [[?
    last_val <- function(x){
  if(length(x) > 0) {
    x[[length(x)]]
  } else {
    x
  }
}

x <- 1:10
last_val(x)
#> [1] 10
x <- c()
last_val(x)
#> NULL
    1. The elements at even numbered positions.
    even_vals <- function(x){
  x[c(seq_along(x) %% 2 == 0)]
}
x <- c("a", "b", "c", "d", "e")
even_vals(x)
#> [1] "b" "d"
x <- 1:10
even_vals(x)
#> [1]  2  4  6  8 10
    1. Every element except the last value.
    all_but_last_val <- function(x){
  if(length(x) > 0) {
    x[-length(x)]
  } else {
    "empty vector"
  }
}

x <- 1:10
all_but_last_val(x)
#> [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
x <- c()
all_but_last_val(x)
#> [1] "empty vector"
all_but_last_val(c(10))
#> numeric(0)
    1. Only even numbers (and no missing values).
          even_nums <- function(x){
        if ((typeof(x) == "integer" || 
             typeof(x) == "numeric" || 
             typeof(x) == "double") 
            && (length(x) > 0)) {
          x[(x %% 2 == 0) & (!is.na(x))]
        } else {
          "Not an integer vector!"
        }
      }
x <- 1:10
x[(x %% 2 == 0) & (!is.na(x))]
#> [1]  2  4  6  8 10
even_nums(x)
#> [1]  2  4  6  8 10
x <- c(NA, 1:5, NaN)
even_nums(x)
#> [1] 2 4
x <- letters[1:10]
even_nums(x)
#> [1] "Not an integer vector!"

  5. Why is x[-which(x > 0)] not the same as x[x <= 0]?

    • which(x): “more generally, including when x has NA’s, which(x) is seq_along(x)[!is.na(x) & x]”. This keeps track of the indicies where the condition we’re testing is TRUE. FALSE and NA are ignored.
    • x <= 0 tests each to see which item meets criterion, and then marks those that do as TRUE, but NA / NaN values are NA for these.
    • Help page for ?[: “NAs in indexing: When extracting, a numerical, logical or character NA index picks an unknown element and so returns NA in the corresponding element of a logical, integer, numeric, complex or character result, and NULL for a list.”
    • So the NaN is the exception here, in that it is treated differently in each. In which(x) it was NA after the condition was checked, so it is not what which(x) is looking for (recall which(x) only cares about TRUE), as a result it is ignored, but for [] it returns as NA.
    x <- c(-9, NA, -Inf, 0:2, NaN, -12, 10, Inf)
x[-which(x > 0)]
#> [1]   -9   NA -Inf    0  NaN  -12
which(x > 0)
#> [1]  5  6  9 10

x[x <= 0]
#> [1]   -9   NA -Inf    0   NA  -12
x<=0
#>  [1]  TRUE    NA  TRUE  TRUE FALSE FALSE    NA  TRUE FALSE FALSE
x[!(x <= 0)]
#> [1]  NA   1   2  NA  10 Inf

  6. What happens when you subset with a positive integer that’s bigger than the length of the vector? What happens when you subset with a name that doesn’t exist?

    You get NA.

    x <- 1:10
v <- c(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
x[11]
#> [1] NA
v["d"]
#> <NA> 
#>   NA

Lists (Recursive vectors)

Lists (Recursive vectors)

Lists are more complex than vectors as lists can contain other lists. You create a list with list().

x <- list(1, 2, 3)
x
#> [[1]]
#> [1] 1
#> 
#> [[2]]
#> [1] 2
#> 
#> [[3]]
#> [1] 3
x[1]
#> [[1]]
#> [1] 1

Super useful tool for working with lists is str() because it focusses on the structure, not the contents.

str(x)
#> List of 3
#>  $ : num 1
#>  $ : num 2
#>  $ : num 3
x_named <- list(a = 1, b = 2, c = 3)
str(x_named)
#> List of 3
#>  $ a: num 1
#>  $ b: num 2
#>  $ c: num 3

list() may have items of mixed types and other lists (not allowed in vectors).

y <- list("a", 1L, 1.5, TRUE)
str(y)
#> List of 4
#>  $ : chr "a"
#>  $ : int 1
#>  $ : num 1.5
#>  $ : logi TRUE
z <- list(list(1, 2), list(3, 4))
str(z)
#> List of 2
#>  $ :List of 2
#>   ..$ : num 1
#>   ..$ : num 2
#>  $ :List of 2
#>   ..$ : num 3
#>   ..$ : num 4
x1 <- list(c(1, 2), c(3, 4))
str(x1)
#> List of 2
#>  $ : num [1:2] 1 2
#>  $ : num [1:2] 3 4
x2 <- list(list(1, 2), list(3, 4))
str(x2)
#> List of 2
#>  $ :List of 2
#>   ..$ : num 1
#>   ..$ : num 2
#>  $ :List of 2
#>   ..$ : num 3
#>   ..$ : num 4
x3 <- list(1, list(2, list(3)))
str(x3)
#> List of 2
#>  $ : num 1
#>  $ :List of 2
#>   ..$ : num 2
#>   ..$ :List of 1
#>   .. ..$ : num 3

Subsetting

There are three ways to subset a list:

a <- list(a = 1:3, b = "a string", c = pi, d = list(-1, -5))
str(a)
#> List of 4
#>  $ a: int [1:3] 1 2 3
#>  $ b: chr "a string"
#>  $ c: num 3.14
#>  $ d:List of 2
#>   ..$ : num -1
#>   ..$ : num -5

  • [ extracts a sub-list. The result will always be a list.

    str(a[1:2])
#> List of 2
#>  $ a: int [1:3] 1 2 3
#>  $ b: chr "a string"
str(a[4])
#> List of 1
#>  $ d:List of 2
#>   ..$ : num -1
#>   ..$ : num -5
a["a"]
#> $a
#> [1] 1 2 3

  • [[ extracts a single component from a list. It removes a level of hierarchy from the list.

    str(a[[1]])
#>  int [1:3] 1 2 3
str(a[[4]])
#> List of 2
#>  $ : num -1
#>  $ : num -5

  • $ is a shorthand for extracting named elements of a list. It works similarly to [[ except that you don’t need to use quotes.

    a$a
#> [1] 1 2 3
a[["a"]]
#> [1] 1 2 3

[[ drills down into the list while [ returns a new, smaller list.

Exercises

  1. Draw the following lists as nested sets:

    1. list(a, b, list(c, d), list(e, f))

    answer exercise 1

    1. list(list(list(list(list(list(a))))))

    answer exercise 1

    super_nested <- list(list(list(list(list(list(a = "a"))))))
str(super_nested)
#> List of 1
#>  $ :List of 1
#>   ..$ :List of 1
#>   .. ..$ :List of 1
#>   .. .. ..$ :List of 1
#>   .. .. .. ..$ :List of 1
#>   .. .. .. .. ..$ a: chr "a"

  2. What happens if you subset a tibble as if you’re subsetting a list? What are the key differences between a list and a tibble?

    The subsetting is much the same - some cases the orientation of the returned structure is changed - e.g. column return for tibble [ but row return for list [.

    The difference between a tibble and a list is that all the elements of a tibble must be vectors with the same length (deals with rectangular data). A list works with rectangular and non-rectangular data.

    x <- list(a = 1:10, b = letters[1:10])
str(x)
#> List of 2
#>  $ a: int [1:10] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
#>  $ b: chr [1:10] "a" "b" "c" "d" ...
(x_tib <- tibble(a = 1:10, b = letters[1:10]))
#> # A tibble: 10 x 2
#>        a b    
#>    <int> <chr>
#>  1     1 a    
#>  2     2 b    
#>  3     3 c    
#>  4     4 d    
#>  5     5 e    
#>  6     6 f    
#>  7     7 g    
#>  8     8 h    
#>  9     9 i    
#> 10    10 j

x[["a"]]
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
x_tib[["a"]]
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
x[2]
#> $b
#>  [1] "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f" "g" "h" "i" "j"
x_tib[2]
#> # A tibble: 10 x 1
#>    b    
#>    <chr>
#>  1 a    
#>  2 b    
#>  3 c    
#>  4 d    
#>  5 e    
#>  6 f    
#>  7 g    
#>  8 h    
#>  9 i    
#> 10 j
typeof(x[["a"]])
#> [1] "integer"
typeof(x_tib[["a"]])
#> [1] "integer"
typeof(x[2])
#> [1] "list"
typeof(x_tib[2])
#> [1] "list"
x$a
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
x_tib$a
#>  [1]  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

Attributes

Attributes

Any vector can contain arbitrary additional metadata through its attributes. Attributes are a kind of named list of vectors that can be attached to an object. You can get and set individual attribute values with attr() or see them all at once with attributes().

x <- 1:10
attr(x, "greeting")
#> NULL
attr(x, "greeting") <- "Hi!"
attr(x, "farewell") <- "Bye!"
attributes(x)
#> $greeting
#> [1] "Hi!"
#> 
#> $farewell
#> [1] "Bye!"
as.Date
#> function (x, ...) 
#> UseMethod("as.Date")
#> <bytecode: 0x000000001691aaa8>
#> <environment: namespace:base>

You can list all the methods for a generic with methods():

methods("as.Date")
#> [1] as.Date.character   as.Date.default     as.Date.factor     
#> [4] as.Date.numeric     as.Date.POSIXct     as.Date.POSIXlt    
#> [7] as.Date.vctrs_sclr* as.Date.vctrs_vctr*
#> see '?methods' for accessing help and source code

You can see the specific implementation of a method with getS3method():

getS3method("as.Date", "default")
#> function (x, ...) 
#> {
#>     if (inherits(x, "Date")) 
#>         x
#>     else if (is.logical(x) && all(is.na(x))) 
#>         .Date(as.numeric(x))
#>     else stop(gettextf("do not know how to convert '%s' to class %s", 
#>         deparse(substitute(x)), dQuote("Date")), domain = NA)
#> }
#> <bytecode: 0x0000000028f8e078>
#> <environment: namespace:base>
getS3method("as.Date", "numeric")
#> function (x, origin, ...) 
#> {
#>     if (missing(origin)) 
#>         stop("'origin' must be supplied")
#>     as.Date(origin, ...) + x
#> }
#> <bytecode: 0x000000002bc2f5f0>
#> <environment: namespace:base>

One important S3 generic is print() as well as the subsetting functions [, [[, and $.

Augmented vectors

Augmented vectors

There are some augmented vectors, which are vectors with additional attributes:

  • Factors
  • Dates
  • Date-times
  • Tibbles

Factors

Factors are designed to represent categorical data that can take a fixed set of possible values. Factors are built on top of integers, and have a levels attribute:

x <- factor(c("ab", "cd", "ab"), levels = c("ab", "cd", "ef"))
typeof(x)
#> [1] "integer"
attributes(x)
#> $levels
#> [1] "ab" "cd" "ef"
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "factor"

Dates and date-times

Dates in R are numeric vectors that represent the number of days since 1 January 1970.

x <- as.Date("1971-01-01")
unclass(x)
#> [1] 365
typeof(x)
#> [1] "double"
attributes(x)
#> $class
#> [1] "Date"

Date-times are numeric vectors with class POSIXct that represent the number of seconds since 1 January 1970.

x <- lubridate::ymd_hm("1970-01-01 01:00")
unclass(x)
#> [1] 3600
#> attr(,"tzone")
#> [1] "UTC"
typeof(x)
#> [1] "double"
attributes(x)
#> $class
#> [1] "POSIXct" "POSIXt" 
#> 
#> $tzone
#> [1] "UTC"

The tzone attribute is optional. It controls how the time is printed.

attr(x, "tzone") <- "US/Pacific"
x
#> [1] "1969-12-31 17:00:00 PST"
attr(x, "tzone") <- "US/Eastern"
x
#> [1] "1969-12-31 20:00:00 EST"
attr(x, "tzone") <- "Africa/Johannesburg"
x
#> [1] "1970-01-01 03:00:00 SAST"

You can always convert datetimes to a regular date time lubridate::as_date_time().

Tibbles

Tibbles are augmented lists: they have class “tbl_df” + “tbl” + “data.frame”, and names (column) and row.names attributes:

tb <- tibble::tibble(x = 1:5, y = 5:1)
typeof(tb)
#> [1] "list"
attributes(tb)
#> $names
#> [1] "x" "y"
#> 
#> $row.names
#> [1] 1 2 3 4 5
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "tbl_df"     "tbl"        "data.frame"
df <- data.frame(x = 1:5, y = 5:1)
typeof(df)
#> [1] "list"
attributes(df)
#> $names
#> [1] "x" "y"
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "data.frame"
#> 
#> $row.names
#> [1] 1 2 3 4 5

The main difference is the class.

Exercises

  1. What does hms::hms(3600) return? How does it print? What primitive type is the augmented vector built on top of? What attributes does it use?

    Time is stored in it. This is converting 3600 seconds to a time in the format hh:mm:ss hence 01:00:00 returned. Built on top of difftime. It does not need any attibutes as all have defaults.

    hms::hms(3600) # 1 hr - equivalent to hms(seconds = 3600)
#> 01:00:00
hms::hms(0) 
#> 00:00:00
hms::hms(60) # 1 min
#> 00:01:00

attributes(hms::hms(1))
#> $units
#> [1] "secs"
#> 
#> $class
#> [1] "hms"      "difftime"

  2. Try and make a tibble that has columns with different lengths. What happens?

    You get an error unless it is a scalar (vector of length = 1) and a column with length > 1. I.e. you can’t combine a column of length = 2, and another of length = 4 as with base R.

    x <- c(2)
y <- letters[1:5]
tibble(x = x, y = y)
#> # A tibble: 5 x 2
#>       x y    
#>   <dbl> <chr>
#> 1     2 a    
#> 2     2 b    
#> 3     2 c    
#> 4     2 d    
#> 5     2 e

x <- c(1:5)
y <- letters[1:10]
tibble(x = x, y = y)
#> Error: Tibble columns must have compatible sizes.
#> * Size 5: Existing data.
#> * Size 10: Column `y`.
#> i Only values of size one are recycled.

  3. Based on the definition above, is it ok to have a list as a column of a tibble?

    Yes it is ok, but you will need a list for every observation.

    x <- list(list(1,2), list(3,4))
y <- letters[1:2]
tibble(x = x, y = y)
#> # A tibble: 2 x 2
#>   x          y    
#>   <list>     <chr>
#> 1 <list [2]> a    
#> 2 <list [2]> b

sessionInfo()
#> R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
#> Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
#> Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 18363)
#> 
#> Matrix products: default
#> 
#> locale:
#> [1] LC_COLLATE=English_South Africa.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_South Africa.1252   
#> [3] LC_MONETARY=English_South Africa.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C                         
#> [5] LC_TIME=English_South Africa.1252    
#> 
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
#> 
#> other attached packages:
#>  [1] lubridate_1.7.8 magrittr_1.5    flair_0.0.2     forcats_0.5.0  
#>  [5] stringr_1.4.0   dplyr_1.0.0     purrr_0.3.4     readr_1.3.1    
#>  [9] tidyr_1.1.0     tibble_3.0.3    ggplot2_3.3.2   tidyverse_1.3.0
#> [13] workflowr_1.6.2
#> 
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] Rcpp_1.0.4.6     lattice_0.20-38  ps_1.3.2         assertthat_0.2.1
#>  [5] rprojroot_1.3-2  digest_0.6.27    utf8_1.1.4       R6_2.4.1        
#>  [9] cellranger_1.1.0 backports_1.1.6  reprex_0.3.0     evaluate_0.14   
#> [13] httr_1.4.2       pillar_1.4.6     rlang_0.4.8      readxl_1.3.1    
#> [17] rstudioapi_0.11  whisker_0.4      rmarkdown_2.4    munsell_0.5.0   
#> [21] broom_0.5.6      compiler_3.6.3   httpuv_1.5.2     modelr_0.1.6    
#> [25] xfun_0.13        pkgconfig_2.0.3  htmltools_0.5.0  tidyselect_1.1.0
#> [29] codetools_0.2-16 fansi_0.4.1      crayon_1.3.4     dbplyr_1.4.3    
#> [33] withr_2.2.0      later_1.0.0      grid_3.6.3       nlme_3.1-144    
#> [37] jsonlite_1.7.0   gtable_0.3.0     lifecycle_0.2.0  DBI_1.1.0       
#> [41] git2r_0.26.1     scales_1.1.0     cli_2.1.0        stringi_1.5.3   
#> [45] pryr_0.1.4       fs_1.5.0         promises_1.1.0   xml2_1.3.2      
#> [49] ellipsis_0.3.1   generics_0.0.2   vctrs_0.3.2      tools_3.6.3     
#> [53] glue_1.4.2       hms_0.5.3        yaml_2.2.1       colorspace_1.4-1
#> [57] rvest_0.3.5      knitr_1.28       haven_2.2.0