Basic of R language

Jarno Tuimala
 Learning aims
• Basic use of R and R help
• How to give R commands
• R data structures
• Reading and writing data
• Some more R commands (exercises)
 R project
• ”R is a free software environment for
statistical computing and graphics”
(http://www.r-project.org)
• ”Bioconductor is a software project for the
analysis of genomic data”
(http://www.bioconductor.org)
– Currently works as an expansion to R
 Packages
• R consists of a core and packages.
• Packages contain functions that are not
available in the core.
• For example, Bioconductor code is
distributed as several dozen of packages
for R.
– Software packages
– Metadata (annotation) packages
Starting the work with R
Start help
Help - Search engine
Help - packages
Anatomy of a help file 1/2

Function {package}

General description

Command and it’s

argument

Detailed description
of arguments
Anatomy of a help file 2/2

Description of how
function actually
works

What function
returns

Related functions

Examples, can be
run from R by:
example(mas5)
 Functions or commands in R 1/3
• To use a function in a package, the
package needs to be loaded in memory.
• Command for this is library( ), for example:
library(affy)
• There are three parts in a command:
– the command
– brackets
– Arguments inside brackets (these are not always
present)
 Functions or commands in R 2/3
• R is case sensitive, so take care when typing in
the commands!
– library(affy) works, but Library(affy) does
not.
• Multiple commands can be written on the same
line. Here we first remove missing values from
the variable year, and then calculate it’s
arithmetic average.
– Writing:
• na.omit(year)
• mean(year)
– Would be the same as
• mean(na.omit(year))
 Functions or commands in R 3/3
• Command can have many arguments.
These are always giving inside the
brackets.
• Numeric (1, 2, 3…) or logic (T/F) values
and names of existing objects are given
for the arguments without quotes, but
string values, such as file names, are
always put inside quotes. For example:
• mas5(dat3, normalize=T, analysis=”absolute”)
 Data structures 1/6
• Vector
– A list of numbers, such as (1,2,3,4,5)
– R: a<-c(1,2,3,4,5)
• Command c creates a vector that is assigned to object a
• Factor
– A list of levels, either numeric or string
– R: b<-as.factor(a)
• Vector a is converted into a factor
 Data structures 2/6
• Data frame
– A table where columns can contain numeric
and string values
– R: d<-data.frame(a, b)
• Matrix
– All columns must contain either numeric or string
values, but these can not be combined
– R: e<-as.matrix(d)
• Data frame d is converted into a matrix e
– R: f<-as.data.frame(e)
• Matrix e is converted into a dataframe f
 Data structures 3/6
• List
– Contains a list of objects of possibly different
types.
– R: g<-as.list(d)
• Converts a data frame d into a list g
• Class structures
– Many of the Bioconductor functions create a
formal class structure, such as an AffyBatch
object.
– They contain data in slots
– Slots can be accessed using the @-operator:
• dat2@cdfName
 Data structures 4/6
• Some command need to get, for example, a
matrix, and do not accept a data frame. Data
frame would give an error message.
• To check the object type:
– R: class(d)
• To check what fields there are in the object:
– R: d
– R: str(d)
• To check the size of the table/matrix:
– R: dim(d)
• To check the length of a factor of vector:
– R: length(a)
 Data structures 5/6
• Some data frame related commands:
– R: names(d)
• Reports column names
– R: row.names(d)
• Reports row names
• These can also be used for giving the names for the
data frame. For example:
– R: row.names(d)<-c("a","b","c","d","e")
• Letters from a to e are used as the row names for data frame d
• Note the quotes around the string values!
– R: row.names(d)
 Data structures 5/6
• Naming objects:
– Never use command names as object names!
– If your unsure whether something is a command
name, type to the comman line first. If it gives an error
message, you’re safe to use it.
– Object names can’t start with a number
– Never use special characters, such as å, ä, or ö in
object names.
– Underscore (_) is not usable, use dot (.) instead:
• Not acceptable: good_data
• Better way: good.data
– Object names are case sensitive, just like commands
 Reading data 1/2
• Command for reading in text files is:
read.table(”suomi.txt”, header=T, sep=”\t”)

• This examples has one command with three

arguments: file name (in quotes), header that
tells whether columns have titles, and sep that
tells that the file is tab-delimited.
 Reading data 2/2
• It is customary to save the data in an object in
R. This is done with the assignment operator
(<-):
dat<-read.table(”suomi.txt”, header=T, sep=”\t”)
• Here, the data read from file suomi.txt is saved
in an object dat in R memory.
• The name of the object is on the left and what
is assigned to the object is on the right.
• Command read.table( ) creates a data
frame.
 Using data frames
• Individual columns in the data frame can be
accessed using one of the following ways:
– Use its name:
• dat$year
• dat is the data frame, and year is the header of one of its columns.
Dollar sign ($) is an opertaor that accesses that column.
– Split the data frame into variables, and use the names
directly:
• attach(dat)
• year
– Use subscripts
 Subscripts 1/2
• Subscripts are given inside square
brackets after the object’s name:
– dat[,1]
• Gets the first column from the object dat
– dat[,1]
• Gets the first row from the object dat
– dat[1,1]
• Gets the first row and it’s first column from the
object dat
• Note that dat is now an object, not a
command!
 Subscripts 2/2
• Subscripts can be used for, e.g., extracting a
subset of the data:
– dat[which(dat$year>1900),]
• Now, this takes a bit of pondering to work out…
• First we have the object dat, and we are accessing a part of it,
because it’s name is followed by the square brackets
• Then we have one command (which) that makes an evaluation
whether the column year in the object dat has a value higher than
1900.
• Last the subscript ends with a comma, that tells us that we are
accessing rows.
• So this command takes all the rows that have a year higher 1900
from the object dat that is a data frame.
 Writing tables
• To write a table:
– write.table(dat, ”dat.txt”, sep=”\t”)
– Here an object dat is written to a file called dat.txt. This file should be
tab-delimited (argument sep).
• To capture what is written on the screen:
– sink(”output.txt”)
– dat
– sink( )
– Here, output written on the screen should be written to a file output.txt
instead. Contents of the object dat are written to the named file. Last,
the file is closed.
– Note that if you accidentally omit the last command, you’ll not be able
to see any output on the screen, because output is still redirected to a
file!
 Quitting R
• Use command q() or menu choise File->Exit.
• R asks whether to save workspace image. If you
do, all the object currently in R memory are
written to a file .Rdata, and all command will be
written a file .Rhistory.
• These can be loaded later, and you can continue
your work from where you left it.
• Loading can be done after starting R using the
manu choises File->Load Workspace and File->
Load History.
 In summary 1/2
• Commands can be recognized from the brackets ”( )” that follow
them. If you calculate how many bracket pairs there are, you’ll be
able to identify the number of commands.
– pData(dat)<-pd
• Assignment to an object is denoted by ”<-” or ”->” or ”=”. If you see a
notation ”= =”, you’ll looking at a comparison operator.
– Many other notations can be found from the documentation for the Base
package or R.
• Table-like objects are often followed by square brackets ”[ ]”. Square
never associate with commands, only objects.
– dat[,1]
• Special characters $ and @ are used denoting individual columns in
a data frame or an individual slot in a class type of an object,
respectively.
– dat$year
– dat2@cdfName
 In summary 2/2
• If you encounter a new command during the exercises,
and you’d like to know what it does, please consult the
documentation. All R commands are listed nowhere, and
the only way to get to know new commands is to read the
documentation files, so we’d like you to practise this
youself.
• You’ll probably see command and notations that were not
introduced in this talk. This in intentional, because we
thought that these things are best handled on a
situational basis. In such cases, please ask for more
clarifications if needed.
• If you run into problems, please ask for help from the
teachers. That’s why we are here!
Installing R
Downloading R
Downloading R
Downloading R
Downloading R
Downloading R
 Installing R for Windows
• Execute the R-2.3.0-win32.exe with
administrator privileges
• Once the program is installed, run the R
program by clicking on its icon

• R 2.2.1 with Bioconductor 1.7.0 is installed

on corona.csc.fi, also
• R 2.3.1 is in works
Downloading Bioconductor
Installing Bioconductor
Installing Bioconductor
Installing Bioconductor
Installing Bioconductor
Installing Bioconductor (the best way)
• Alternatively, you can install Bioconductor
using a script:

source("http://www.bioconductor.org/biocLite.R")
biocLite()

biocLite(c(” "hgu133a", "hgu133acdf",

"hgu133aprobe", "ygs98", "ygs98cdf",
"ygs98probe")