Learn R – Hello World with R – Code Example

Following are the key points described later in this article:

• Basic Concepts to Write Hello World Function in R
• Hello World – Code Example

Basic Concepts to Write Hello World Function in R

Following are some key points to pay attention at, while working Hello World example:

• R code is written as a set of one or more functions.
• In R, one could assign a function to any variable
• A function is defined using a “function” keyword
• R code is called as a script and saved with *.R extension
• The R script is executed using source command shown later in this article

Hello World – Code Example

Following is code example for Hello world. Pay attention to some of the following:

• Usage of sprintf function to print Hello World
• The way, argument “name” is passed to the function

hello <- function( name ) {
    sprintf( "Hello, %s", name );
}

Follow the instructions below to execute the script:

• Click on File > New script that opens a window where you could write your script. Copy and paste the above script in the file.
• Save the file as, may be, helloworld.R
• Go to command prompt in R console, and write following command to execute the script.

  source("Path_to_the_file")
  

  In case of windows, use “\\” to escape the back slash.

• Execute command, hello(“Calvin”)
• This would print Hello, Calvin