Practical Applications of Bayesian Reliability

Appendix BCommonly Used R Commands

B.1 How to Run R Commands

There are several ways to run R commands:

• Type a command in the R Studio console window (after the prompt symbol >), and press Enter.
• Run codes in an R script file.R in the R Studio source window (where you can read, create, and edit R scripts) once the file is open. This is recommended for readers to run the R scripts in each chapter. By clicking the Run button (located above the R script file, at the top right of the editing window), R will execute the current line (where the cursor is). You can also select (highlight) multiple lines in an R script file and click Run to execute them all at once.

B.2 General Commands

Note that the > symbol at the beginning of each R command in the R Studio console window is a prompt generated by R.

• Get R help files for a function

  Type “?” followed by a command name, for example:

   > ?library > ?matrix 

• Set the working directory

  By setting the working directory in R using command setwd, files can be read from or written to this default location, for example

   > setwd("C:/Bayesian") 

• Check the current working directory

   > getwd() 

• Install R packages

   > install.packages("mcmcplots") 

• Load packages

   > library(rjags) 

B.3 Generate Data

• Assign a value to a variable

  There are two ways to assign a value to a variable in R:

   > x <- 3 

  or

   > x = 3 

  Both of these commands assign the value 3 to the variable x. When you type x, its value will be shown.

   > x [1] 3 

• Concatenate (combine) function

   > c(1,3,5) ...