An R Introduction to Statistics

Matrix

fractal-09hA matrix is a collection of data elements arranged in a two-dimensional rectangular layout. The following is an example of a matrix with 2 rows and 3 columns.

[ ] 2 4 3 A = 1 5 7

We reproduce a memory representation of the matrix in R with the matrix function. The data elements must be of the same basic type.

> A = matrix( 
+   c(2, 4, 3, 1, 5, 7), # the data elements 
+   nrow=2,              # number of rows 
+   ncol=3,              # number of columns 
+   byrow = TRUE)        # fill matrix by rows 
 
> A                      # print the matrix 
     [,1] [,2] [,3] 
[1,]    2    4    3 
[2,]    1    5    7

An element at the mth row, nth column of A can be accessed by the expression A[m, n].

> A[2, 3]      # element at 2nd row, 3rd column 
[1] 7

The entire mth row A can be extracted as A[m, ].

> A[2, ]       # the 2nd row 
[1] 1 5 7

Similarly, the entire nth column A can be extracted as A[ ,n].

> A[ ,3]       # the 3rd column 
[1] 3 7

We can also extract more than one rows or columns at a time.

> A[ ,c(1,3)]  # the 1st and 3rd columns 
     [,1] [,2] 
[1,]    2    3 
[2,]    1    7

If we assign names to the rows and columns of the matrix, than we can access the elements by names.

> dimnames(A) = list( 
+   c("row1", "row2"),         # row names 
+   c("col1", "col2", "col3")) # column names 
 
> A                 # print A 
     col1 col2 col3 
row1    2    4    3 
row2    1    5    7 
 
> A["row2", "col3"] # element at 2nd row, 3rd column 
[1] 7
Tags: