jaRgon

atomic vector

An object that contains only one form of data. The atomic modes are: “logical”, “numeric”, “complex” and “character”.

attach

The act of adding an item to the search list. You usually attach a package with the require function, you attach saved files and objects with the attach function.

data frame

A rectangular data object where each column may be a different type of data. Conceptually a generalization of a matrix, but implemented entirely differently.

factor

A data object that represents categorical data. It is possible (and often unfortunate) to confuse a factor with a character vector.

global environment

The first location on the search list, and the place where objects that you create reside.

list

A type of object with possibly multiple components where each component may be an arbitrary object, including a list.

matrix

A rectangular data object where all cells have the same data type. Conceptually a specialization of a data frame, but implemented entirely differently.

package

A collection of R objects in a special format that includes help files and such. Most packages primarily or exclusively contain functions, but some packages exclusively contain datasets.

search list

The collection of locations that R searches for objects when it is evaluating a command.

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