July 2015
Beginner to intermediate
432 pages
9h 15m
English
Content preview from R For Dummies, 2nd Edition
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Chapter 8
Putting the Fun in Functions
In This Chapter
Automating your work with functions
Playing with arguments
Finding objects within the functions
Working with methods
Automating your work is probably the number one reason why you use a programming language. You can get pretty far with the built-in functions of R in combination with scripts, but scripts aren’t very flexible when dealing with variable input. Luckily, R allows you to write your own custom functions (for example, to automate the cleaning of your data, to apply a series of analyses with one command, or to construct custom plots).
The functions that you write yourself are essentially the same as many of the built-in functions — they are first-class citizens. In this chapter, you discover how to write and work with functions in R.
Moving from Scripts to Functions
Going from a script to a function doesn’t take much effort at all. A function is essentially a piece of code that is executed consecutively and without interruption. In that way, a function doesn’t differ that much from a script run using the source() function, ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.