Data Structures
Data Structures
• Vector
• Matrix
• Array
• Data Frame
• List
Vector: 1D Array (either row or column)
Matrix: 2D Array (rows, columns)
Array: 3D or more dimensions (rows, columns, planes)
Data Frames
• A data frame is used for storing data tables. It can be
seen as a collection of column-vectors of equal length.
• Columns:
• Typically called variables or fields
• Must have unique column names
• Each column must have a single Data Type, but the
Data Type of each column can be different.
• Rows:
• Typically called observations or records
• Row names are optional, their index tends to be a
numerical sequence.
Differences Between Computer Science and Math
• Coordinates in Databases: (row, col) vs Coordinates in Math: (x, y)
vs
Differences Between Computer Science and Math
• Databases: (3, 2) vs Cartesian: (3, 2)
vs
Different ways to create arrays (1/2)
1. With the combine function “c( )”
w <- c(”a”, ”b”, ”c”, “d“, “e“, ”f”)
2. With the “matrix(data, nrow, ncol)” function
h <- matrix(0, 4, 5)
3. With the “array(data, c(row, col, plane))” function,
z <- array(w, c(3, 2))
z <- array(c(“AMZN”, “AAPL”, “DIS”, “FB”, “MCD”, “TSLA”), c(2, 3))
Different ways to create arrays (2/2)
4. Adding elements to an existing variable in the workspace or
environment
x<-5
x[2]<-6
x[3]<-7
If the variable doesn’t exist already, we will get an error:
z[2] <- “b”
However, we can add non-consecutive elements to an existing variable
and any undefined elements in-between will be NA, for example, the
command below generates NAs in x[4] and x[5]
x[6] <- 10
Other two dimensional objects
Data frames:
table <- data.frame(x, w)
Other useful data structures exist, like
time series “ts( )”
extensible time series “xts( )”
tibbles “tibble()”
Subsetting
• Subsetting (or Slicing): Once an
array is created, its information
can be retrieved either by
calling the variable completely
or by calling a subset of the
array.
Recycling
• Recycling: When performing an
operation with structures of
different sizes, R tries to take the
object of smaller length and
reuse it as necessary to match
the object of greater length. If the
greater length is a multiple of the
smaller length (or if the smaller
length is 1), then R doesn’t send
an error message
Data Types & Data Structures: Troubleshooting
• Functions to confirm / identify data types & data structures:
str( object ) → structure
typeof( object ) → storage mode
class( object ) → class attribute(s)
• These are mainly useful when troubleshooting, since sometimes the
variables types aren’t the ones we assumed and the coercing of some
operations might not work as expected.
Next steps…
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