R Module 12 - Functions
Uploaded by
lowtarhkMR Module 12 - Functions
Uploaded by
lowtarhkMFunctions
Andrew Jaffe
January 9, 2016
Writing your own functions
This is a brief introduction. The syntax is:
functionName = function(inputs) {
< function body >
return(value)
}
Then you would run the 4 lines of the code, which adds it to your
workspace.
Writing your own functions
Here we will write a function that returns the second element of a
vector:
> return2 = function(x) {
+ return(x[2])
+ }
> return2(c(1,4,5,76))
[1] 4
Writing your own functions
Note that your function will automatically return the last line of
code run:
> return2a = function(x) {
+ x[2]
+ }
> return2a(c(1,4,5,76))
[1] 4
And if your function is really one line or evaluation, like here, you do
not need the curly brackets, and you can put everything on one line:
> return2b = function(x) x[2]
> return2b(c(1,4,5,76))
[1] 4
Writing your own functions
Also note that functions can take multiple inputs. Maybe you want
users to select which element to extract
> return2c = function(x,n) x[n]
> return2c(c(1,4,5,76), 3)
[1] 5
Writing a simple function
Let’s write a function, sqdif, that:
1. takes two numbers x and y with default values of 2 and 3.
2. takes the difference
3. squares this difference
4. then returns the final value
Writing a simple function
> sqdif <- function(x=2,y=3){
+ (x-y)^2
+ }
>
> sqdif()
[1] 1
> sqdif(x=10,y=5)
[1] 25
> sqdif(10,5)
[1] 25
Writing your own functions
Try to write a function called top() that takes a matrix or
data.frame, and returns the first n rows and columns, with the
default value of n=5.
Writing your own functions
Try to write a function called top() that takes a matrix or
data.frame, and returns the first n rows and columns
> top = function(mat,n=5) mat[1:n,1:n]
> my.mat = matrix(1:1000,nr=100)
> top(my.mat) #note that we are using the default value for
[,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
[1,] 1 101 201 301 401
[2,] 2 102 202 302 402
[3,] 3 103 203 303 403
[4,] 4 104 204 304 404
[5,] 5 105 205 305 405
Custom functions in apply
You can use any function you want in apply statements. For
example, from our split Circulator data
> circ = read.csv("http://www.aejaffe.com/winterR_2016/data
+ header=TRUE,as.is=TRUE)
> dayList = split(circ, circ$day)
> lapply(dayList, top, n = 2)
$Friday
day date
5 Friday 01/15/2010
12 Friday 01/22/2010
$Monday
day date
1 Monday 01/11/2010
8 Monday 01/18/2010
Custom functions in apply
You can also designate functions “on the fly”
> lapply(dayList, function(x) x[1:2,1:2])
$Friday
day date
5 Friday 01/15/2010
12 Friday 01/22/2010
$Monday
day date
1 Monday 01/11/2010
8 Monday 01/18/2010
$Saturday
day date
6 Saturday 01/16/2010
13 Saturday 01/23/2010
Simple apply
sapply() is a user-friendly version and wrapper of lapply by
default returning a vector, matrix, or array
> sapply(dayList, dim)
Friday Monday Saturday Sunday Thursday Tuesday Wednesd
[1,] 164 164 163 163 164 164 1
[2,] 15 15 15 15 15 15
> sapply(circ, class)
day date orangeBoardings orangeAl
"character" "character" "integer" "
orangeAverage purpleBoardings purpleAlightings purpl
"numeric" "integer" "integer" "
greenBoardings greenAlightings greenAverage bannerB
"integer" "integer" "numeric" "
bannerAlightings bannerAverage daily
> myList = list(a=1:10, b=c(2,4,5), c = c("a","b","c"),
+ d = factor(c("boy","girl","girl")))
> tmp = lapply(myList,function(x) x[1])
> tmp
$a
[1] 1
$b
[1] 2
$c
[1] "a"
$d
[1] boy
Levels: boy girl
> sapply(tmp, class)
> sapply(myList,function(x) x[1])
a b c d
"1" "2" "a" "1"
> sapply(myList,function(x) as.character(x[1]))
a b c d
"1" "2" "a" "boy"
