R and MATLAB

3

 

 

Matrices and Vectors

 

 

 

3.1 Overview

Both MATLAB and R can work directly with vectors and with m x n matrices (with the usual convention that m specifies the number of rows and n the number of columns). Both platforms support vectorized computations, i.e., expressions that implicitly operate on entire vectors or matrices. However, there are some important differences between the two.

• A key difference in syntax is that R uses square brackets to delimit matrix subscripts (e.g., A[2,3]), while MATLAB uses parentheses (e.g., A(2,3)). R's syntax has the advantage here because when reading MATLAB code, it is not immediately apparent whether g(2,3) is accessing an element of a matrix g, or calling a function g with two parameters.

• In R, ...