R Quick Syntax Reference

CHAPTER 12

Flow Control

Flow control statements are used to repeat a series of tasks a number of times or to direct flow based on a logical object. For persons who came into programming in the age of FORTRAN and BASIC, using loops is very comfortable. In R, the better choice, if possible, is to use arrays and index selection instead of looping. Using indices is much faster than looping.

That said, the control statements are if, if/else, while, for, and repeat. They are sometimes necessary and often useful. In this chapter, we give syntax for the flow control statements. We give examples of the use of flow control in Chapter 13.

Brackets “{ }” ...