Lists

sum(0:9)
append(LETTERS[1:13],letters[14:26])
c(1,6,4,9)*2
something <- c(1,4,letters[2])  # indices start at one, you get (1,4,"b")
length(something)

sum(0:9)
[1] 45
> append(LETTERS[1:13],letters[14:26])
 [1] "A" "B" "C" "D" "E" "F" "G" "H" "I" "J" "K" "L" "M" "n" "o"
[16] "p" "q" "r" "s" "t" "u" "v" "w" "x" "y" "z"
> c(1,6,4,9)*2
[1]  2 12  8 18
> something <- c(1,4,letters[2]) #indices start at one, you get (1,4,"b")
> length(something)
[1] 3

Generating lists

You can use a colon to generate a list of numbers:

-5:5

[1] -5 -4 -3 -2 -1  0  1  2  3  4  5

The c function

The c function combines the parameters into a list and converts them to the same type.

c("test",3)

[1] "test" "3"

typeof("3")

[1] "character"

Here 3 is converted to a string.

The seq function

seq generates more complex regular sequences:

> seq(from=1,to=4,by=.6)

[1] 1.0 1.6 2.2 2.8 3.4 4.0

Accessing list members

List members can be accessed using brackets as in most languages: (3:5)[2]. This returns 4 because indices start with 1.
You can also extract multiple list members from a list: letters[2:4] returns [1] "b" "c" "d".

Appending to lists

You can use the append function for this. Its return value has to be reassigned to the variable.
By default the new value is appended at the end of the list. You can use the after argument to change that:

a <- 1:4
append(a,2.4,after=2)

[1] 1.0 2.0 2.4 3.0 4.0

Operating on lists

R allows you to easily operate on all list values at once.

c(1,2,3) + 3

This and the apply function allow you to avoid most for loops.

[1] 4 5 6

Predefined lists

Lists for letters and month names are predefined:

letters

[1] "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" "f" "g" "h" "i" "j" "k" "l" "m" "n" "o"
[16] "p" "q" "r" "s" "t" "u" "v" "w" "x" "y" "z"

LETTERS

[1] "A" "B" "C" "D" "E" "F" "G" "H" "I" "J" "K" "L" "M" "N" "O"
[16] "P" "Q" "R" "S" "T" "U" "V" "W" "X" "Y" "Z"

month.abb

[1] "Jan" "Feb" "Mar" "Apr" "May" "Jun" "Jul" "Aug" "Sep" "Oct"
[11] "Nov" "Dec"

month.name

[1] "January"   "February"  "March"     "April"     "May"      
 [6] "June"      "July"      "August"    "September" "October"  
[11] "November"  "December"

What are vectors?

Vectors are lists in which all elements have the same type. For example, the c function creates a vector.