MATLAB °R / R Reference

November 24, 2009

David Hiebeler
Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
University of Maine
Orono, ME 04469-5752
http://www.math.umaine.edu/~hiebeler

I wrote the first version of this reference during the Spring 2007 semester, as I learned R while teaching
my course “MAT400, Modeling & Simulation” at the University of Maine. The course covers population
and epidemiological modeling, including deterministic and stochastic models in discrete and continuous
time, along with spatial models. Half of the class meetings are in a regular classroom, and half are in
a computer lab where students work through modeling & simulation exercises. When I taught earlier
versions of the course, it was based on Matlab only. In Spring 2007, some biology graduate students in
the class who had learned R in statistics courses asked if they could use R in my class as well, and I said
yes. My colleague Bill Halteman was a great help as I frantically learned R to stay ahead of the class.
As I went, every time I learned how to do something in R for the course, I added it to this reference, so
that I wouldn’t forget it later. Some items took a huge amount of time searching for a simple way to do
what I wanted, but at the end of the semester, I was pleasantly surprised that almost everything I do
in Matlab had an equivalent in R. I was also inspired to do this after seeing the “R for Octave Users”
reference written by Robin Hankin. I’ve continued to add to the document, with many additions based
on topics that came up while teaching courses on Advanced Linear Algebra and Numerical Analysis.
This reference is organized into general categories. There is also a Matlab index and an R index at
the end, which should make it easy to look up a command you know in one of the languages and learn
how to do it in the other (or if you’re trying to read code in whichever language is unfamiliar to you,
allow you to translate back to the one you are more familiar with). The index entries refer to the item
numbers in the first column of the reference document, rather than page numbers.
Any corrections, suggested improvements, or even just notification that the reference has been useful
will be appreciated. I hope all the time I spent on this will prove useful for others in addition to myself
and my students. Note that sometimes I don’t necessarily do things in what you may consider the “best”
way in a particular language; I often tried to do things in a similar way in both languages. But if you
believe you have a “better” way (either simpler, or more computationally efficient) to do something, feel
free to let me know.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Alan Cobo-Lewis and Isaac Michaud for correcting some errors;
and Thomas Clerc, Richard Cotton, Stephen Eglen, Andreas Handel, David Khabie-Zeitoune, Michael
Kiparsky, Andy Moody, Lee Pang, Manas A. Pathak, Rune Schjellerup Philosof, and Corey Yanofsky for
contributions.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided this permission
notice is preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions
for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, un-
der the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a
translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.

c
Copyright °2007–2009 David Hiebeler

1
D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 2

Contents
1 Help 3

2 Entering/building/indexing matrices 3
2.1 Cell arrays and lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Structs and data frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

3 Computations 6
3.1 Basic computations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2 Complex numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3 Matrix/vector computations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4 Root-finding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5 Function optimization/minimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.6 Numerical integration / quadrature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.7 Curve fitting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4 Conditionals, control structure, loops 17

5 Functions, ODEs 21

6 Probability and random values 23

7 Graphics 27
7.1 Various types of plotting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2 Printing/saving graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7.3 Animating cellular automata / lattice simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

8 Working with files 37

9 Miscellaneous 38
9.1 Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.2 Strings and Misc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

10 Spatial Modeling 42

Index of MATLAB commands and concepts 43

Index of R commands and concepts 48

 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 3

1 Help
No. Description Matlab R
1 Show help for a function (e.g. help sqrt, or helpwin sqrt to see help(sqrt) or ?sqrt
sqrt) it in a separate window
2 Show help for a built-in key- help for help(’for’) or ?’for’
word (e.g. for)
3 General list of many help top- help library() to see available libraries,
ics or library(help=’base’) for very
long list of stuff in base package which
you can see help for
4 Explore main documentation doc or helpbrowser (previously it help.start()
in browser was helpdesk, which is now being
phased out)
5 Search documentation for lookfor binomial help.search(’binomial’)
keyword or partial keyword
(e.g. functions which refer to
“binomial”)

2 Entering/building/indexing matrices
No. Description Matlab R
6 Enter
£ a row ¤ vector ~v = v=[1 2 3 4] v=c(1,2,3,4) or alternatively
1 2 3 4 v=scan() then enter “1 2 3 4” and
press Enter twice (the blank line
 terminates input)
1
 2 
7 Enter a column vector  
 3  [1; 2; 3; 4] c(1,2,3,4)
4
(R does not distinguish between row
· ¸ and column vectors.)
1 2 3
8 Enter a matrix [1 2 3 ; 4 5 6] To enter values by row:
4 5 6
matrix(c(1,2,3,4,5,6), nrow=2,
byrow=TRUE) To enter values by
column: matrix(c(1,4,2,5,3,6),
nrow=2)
9 Access an element of vector v v(3) v[3]
10 Access an element of matrix A(2,3) A[2,3]
A
11 Access an element of matrix A(5) A[5]
A using a single index: in-
dices count down the first col-
umn, then down the second
column, etc.
12 Build the vector [2 3 4 5 6 7] 2:7 2:7
13 Build the vector [7 6 5 4 3 2] 7:-1:2 7:2
14 Build the vector [2 5 8 11 14] 2:3:14 seq(2,14,3)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 4

No. Description Matlab R

15 Build a vector containing linspace(a,b,n) seq(a,b,length.out=n) or just
n equally-spaced values be- seq(a,b,len=n)
tween a and b inclusive
16 Build a vector containing logspace(a,b,n) 10^seq(a,b,len=n)
n logarithmically equally-
spaced values between 10a
and 10b inclusive
17 Build a vector of length k zeros(k,1) (for a column vector) or rep(0,k)
containing all zeros zeros(1,k) (for a row vector)
18 Build a vector of length k j*ones(k,1) (for a column vector) rep(j,k)
containing the value j in all or j*ones(1,k) (for a row vector)
positions
19 Build an m×n matrix of zeros zeros(m,n) matrix(0,nrow=m,ncol=n) or just
matrix(0,m,n)
20 Build an m × n matrix con- j*ones(m,n) matrix(j,nrow=m,ncol=n) or just
taining j in all positions matrix(j,m,n)
21 n × n identity matrix In eye(n) diag(n)
22 Build diagonal matrix A us- diag(v) diag(v,nrow=length(v)) (Note: if
ing elements of vector v as di- you are sure the length of vector v is 2
agonal entries or more, you can simply say diag(v).)
23 Extract diagonal elements of v=diag(A) v=diag(A)
matrix A
24 “Glue” two matrices a1 and [a1 a2] cbind(a1,a2)
a2 (with the same number of
rows) side-by-side
25 “Stack” two matrices a1 and [a1; a2] rbind(a1,a2)
a2 (with the same number of
columns) on top of each other
26 Reverse the order of elements v(end:-1:1) rev(v)
in vector v
27 Column 2 of matrix A A(:,2) A[,2] Note: that gives the result as a
vector. To make the result a m×1 ma-
trix instead, do A[,2,drop=FALSE]
28 Row 7 of matrix A A(7,:) A[7,] Note: that gives the result as a
vector. To make the result a 1×n ma-
trix instead, do A[7,,drop=FALSE]
29 All elements of A as a vector, A(:) (gives a column vector) c(A)
column-by-column
30 Rows 2–4, columns 6–10 of A A(2:4,6:10) A[2:4,6:10]
(this is a 3 × 5 matrix)
31 A 3 × 2 matrix consisting of A([7 7 6], [2 1]) A[c(7,7,6),c(2,1)]
rows 7, 7, and 6 and columns
2 and 1 of A (in that order)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 5

No. Description Matlab R

32 Given a single index ind into
an m × n matrix A, compute [r,c] = ind2sub(size(A), ind) r = ((ind-1) %% m) + 1
the row r and column c of c = floor((ind-1) / m) + 1
that position (also works if
ind is a vector)
33 Given the row r and column
c of an element of an m × n ind = sub2ind(size(A), r, c) ind = (c-1)*m + r
matrix A, compute the single
index ind which can be used
to access that element of A
(also works if r and c are vec-
tors)
34 Given equal-sized vectors r
and c (each of length k), set inds = sub2ind(size(A),r,c); inds = cbind(r,c)
elements in rows (given by r) A(inds) = 12; A[inds] = 12
and columns (given by c) of
matrix A equal to 12. That
is, k elements of A will be
modified.
35 Truncate vector v, keeping v = v(1:10) v = v[1:10], or length(v) = 10
only the first 10 elements also works
36 Extract elements of vector v v(a:end) v[a:length(v)]
from position a to the end
37 All but the k th element of v([1:(k-1) (k+1):end]) v[-k]
vector v
38 All but the j th and k th ele- No simple way? Generalize the pre- v[c(-j,-k)]
ments of vector v vious item
39 Reshape matrix A, making it A = reshape(A,m,n) dim(A) = c(m,n)
an m × n matrix with ele-
ments taken columnwise from
the original A (which must
have mn elements)
40 Extract the lower-triangular L = tril(A) L = A; L[upper.tri(L)]=0
portion of matrix A
41 Extract the upper-triangular U = triu(A) U = A; U[lower.tri(U)]=0
portion of matrix A
42 Enter n × n Hilbert matrix H hilb(n) Hilbert(n), but this is part of the
where Hij = 1/(i + j − 1) Matrix package which you’ll need to
install (see item 316 for how to in-
stall/load packages).
43 Enter an n-dimensional array, reshape(1:24, 3, 4, 2) or array(1:24, c(3,4,2)) (Note that
e.g. a 3 × 4 × 2 array with the reshape(1:24, [3 4 2]) a matrix is 2-D, i.e. rows and
values 1 through 24 columns, while an array is more gen-
erally N -D)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 6

2.1 Cell arrays and lists

No. Description Matlab R
44 Build a vector v of length n, v = cell(1,n) In general, v = vector(’list’,n) Then you
capable of containing differ- cell(m,n) makes an m × n cell can do e.g.:
ent data types in different el- array. Then you can do e.g.:
ements (called a cell array in v[[1]] = 12
Matlab, and a list in R) v{1} = 12 v[[2]] = ’hi there’
v{2} = ’hi there’ v[[3]] = matrix(runif(9),3)
v{3} = rand(3)

45 Extract the ith element of a

cell/list vector v w = v{i} w = v[[i]]

If you use regular indexing, i.e. w If you use regular indexing, i.e. w =
= v(i), then w will be a 1 × 1 cell v[i], then w will be a list of length 1
matrix containing the contents of the containing the contents of the ith ele-
ith element of v. ment of v.
46 Set the name of the ith ele- (Matlab does not have names asso- names(v)[3] = ’myrandmatrix’
ment in a list. ciated with elements of cell arrays.) Use names(v) to see all names, and
names(v)=NULL to clear all names.

2.2 Structs and data frames

No. Description Matlab R
47 Create a matrix-like object avals=2*ones(1,6); v=c(1,5,3,2,3,7); d=data.frame(
with different named columns yvals=6:-1:1; v=[1 5 3 2 3 7]; cbind(a=2, yy=6:1), v)
(a struct in Matlab, or a d=struct(’a’,avals,
data frame in R) ’yy’, yyvals, ’fac’, v);
Note that I (surprisingly) don’t use R for statistics, and therefore have very little experience with data
frames (and also very little with Matlab structs). I will try to add more to this section later on.

3 Computations
3.1 Basic computations
No. Description Matlab R
48 a + b, a − b, ab, a/b a+b, a-b, a*b, a/b a+b, a-b, a*b, a/b
√
49 a sqrt(a) sqrt(a)
50 ab a^b a^b
51 |a| (note: for complex ar- abs(a) abs(a)
guments, this computes the
modulus)
52 ea exp(a) exp(a)
53 ln(a) log(a) log(a)
54 log2 (a), log10 (a) log2(a), log10(a) log2(a), log10(a)
55 sin(a), cos(a), tan(a) sin(a), cos(a), tan(a) sin(a), cos(a), tan(a)
56 sin−1 (a), cos−1 (a), tan−1 (a) asin(a), acos(a), atan(a) asin(a), acos(a), atan(a)
57 sinh(a), cosh(a), tanh(a) sinh(a), cosh(a), tanh(a) sinh(a), cosh(a), tanh(a)
58 sinh−1 (a), cosh−1 (a), asinh(a), acosh(a), atanh(a) asinh(a), acosh(a), atanh(a)
−1
tanh (a)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 7

No. Description Matlab R

59 n MOD k (modulo arith- mod(n,k) n %% k
metic)
60 Round to nearest integer round(x) round(x) (Note: R uses IEC 60559
standard, rounding 5 to the even digit
— so e.g. round(0.5) gives 0, not 1.)
61 Round down to next lowest floor(x) floor(x)
integer
62 Round up to next largest in- ceil(x) ceiling(x)
teger
63 Sign of x (+1, 0, or -1) sign(x) (Note: for complex values, sign(x) (Does not work with com-
this computes x/abs(x).) plex values)
64 Error function erf(x) = erf(x) 2*pnorm(x*sqrt(2))-1
√ Rx 2
(2/ π) 0 e−t dt
65 Complementary er- erfc(x) 2*pnorm(x*sqrt(2),lower=FALSE)
ror function cerf(x) =
√ R∞ 2
(2/ π) x e−t dt = 1-erf(x)
66 Inverse error function erfinv(x) qnorm((1+x)/2)/sqrt(2)
67 Inverse complementary error erfcinv(x) qnorm(x/2,lower=FALSE)/sqrt(2)
function
68 Binomial
µ ¶ coefficient nchoosek(n,k) choose(n,k)
n
= n!/(n!(n − k)!)
k
Note: the various functions above (logarithm, exponential, trig, abs, and rounding functions) all work
with vectors and matrices, applying the function to each element, as well as with scalars.

3.2 Complex numbers

No. Description Matlab R
69 Enter a complex number 1+2i 1+2i
70 Modulus (magnitude) abs(z) abs(z) or Mod(z)
71 Argument (angle) angle(z) Arg(z)
72 Complex conjugate conj(z) Conj(z)
73 Real part of z real(z) Re(z)
74 Imaginary part of z imag(z) Im(z)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 8

3.3 Matrix/vector computations

No. Description Matlab R
75 Matrix multiplication AB A * B A %*% B
76 Element-by-element multipli- A .* B A * B
cation of A and B
77 Transpose of a matrix, AT A’ (This is actually the complex con- t(A) for transpose, or Conj(t(A)) for
jugate (i.e. Hermitian) transpose; conjugate (Hermitian) transpose
use A.’ for the non-conjugate trans-
pose if you like; they are equivalent
for real matrices.)
78 Solve A~x = ~b A\b Warning: if there is no solution, solve(A,b) Warning: this only works
Matlab gives you a least-squares with square invertible matrices.
“best fit.” If there are many solu-
tions, Matlab just gives you one of
them.
79 Reduced echelon form of A rref(A) R does not have a function to do this
80 Compute inverse of A inv(A) solve(A)
81 Compute AB −1 A/B A %*% solve(B)
82 Element-by-element division A ./ B A / B
of A and B
83 Compute A−1 B A\B solve(A,B)
84 Square the matrix A A^2 A %*% A
85 Raise matrix A to the k th A^k (No easy way to do this in R
power other than repeated multiplication
A %*% A %*% A...)
86 Raise each element of A to A.^k A^k
the k th power
87 Rank of matrix A rank(A) qr(A)$rank
88 Set w to be a vector of eigen- [V,D]=eig(A) and then w=diag(D) tmp=eigen(A); w=tmp$values;
values of A, and V a matrix since Matlab returns the eigenval- V=tmp$vectors
containing the corresponding ues on the diagonal of D
eigenvectors
89 Permuted LU factorization of [L,U,P]=lu(A) then the matrices tmp=expand(lu(Matrix(A)));
a matrix satisfy P A = LU . Note that this L=tmp$L; U=tmp$U; P=tmp$P then
works even with non-square matrices the matrices satisfy A = P LU , i.e.
P −1 A = LU . Note that the lu and
expand functions are part of the Ma-
trix package (see item 316 for how to
install/load packages). Also note that
this doesn’t seem to work correctly
with non-square matrices. L, U, and
P will be of class Matrix rather than
class matrix; to make them the latter,
instead do L=as.matrix(tmp$L),
U=as.matrix(tmp$U), and
P=as.matrix(tmp$P) above.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 9

No. Description Matlab R

90 Singular-value decomposi- [P,S,Q]=svd(A,’econ’) tmp=svd(A); U=tmp$u; V=tmp$v;
tion: given m × n matrix S=diag(tmp$d)
A with rank r, find m × r
matrix P with orthonormal
columns, diagonal r × r
matrix S, and r × n matrix
QT with orthonormal rows
so that P SQT = A
91 Schur decomposi- [Q,T]=schur(A) tmp=Schur(Matrix(A)); T=tmp@T;
tion of square matrix, Q=tmp@Q Note that Schur is part of
A = QT QH = QT Q−1 where the Matrix package (see item 316 for
Q is unitary (i.e. QH Q = I) how to install/load packages). T and
and T is upper triangular; Q will be of class Matrix rather than
QH = QT is the Hermitian class matrix; to make them the latter,
(conjugate) transpose instead do T=as.matrix(tmp@T) and
Q=as.matrix(tmp@Q) above.
92 Cholesky factorization of a R = chol(A) R = chol(A) Note that chol is part
square, symmetric, positive of the Matrix package (see item 316
definite matrix A = RT R, for how to install/load packages).
where R is upper-triangular
93 QR factorization of matrix A, [Q,R]=qr(A) satisfying QR = A, or z=qr(A); Q=qr.Q(z); R=qr.R(z);
where Q is orthogonal (sat- [Q,R,E]=qr(A) to do permuted QR E=diag(n)[,z$pivot] (where n is
isfying QQT = I) and R is factorization satisfying AE = QR the number of columns in A) gives
upper-triangular permuted QR factorization satisfying
AE = QR
94 Vector norms norm(v,1) for 1-norm k~v k1 , R does not have a norm func-
norm(v,2) for Euclidean norm tion for vectors; only one for
k~v k2 , norm(v,inf) for infinity-norm matrices. But the following will
k~v k∞ , and norm(v,p) for p-norm work: norm(matrix(v),’1’) for
1/p 1-norm k~v k1 , norm(matrix(v),’i’)
k~v kp = ( |vi |p )
P
for infinity-norm k~v k∞ , and
sum(abs(v)^p)^(1/p) for p-norm
1/p
k~v kp = ( |vi |p )
P
95 Matrix norms norm(A,1) for 1-norm kAk1 , norm(A,’1’) for 1-norm kAk1 ,
norm(A) for 2-norm kAk2 , max(svd(A)$d) for 2-norm kAk2 ,
norm(A,inf) for infinity-norm norm(A,’i’) for infinity-norm kAk∞ ,
kAk∞ , and norm(A,’fro’) for and norm(A,’f’) for Frobenius norm
¡P T ¢1/2 ¡P T ¢1/2
Frobenius norm i (A A)ii i (A A)ii
96 Condition number cond(A) = cond(A,1) (Note: Matlab also has 1/rcond(A,’1’)
kAk1 kA−1 k1 of A, using 1- a function rcond(A) which computes
norm reciprocal condition estimator using
the 1-norm)
97 Condition number cond(A) = cond(A,2) kappa(A, exact=TRUE) (leave out
kAk2 kA−1 k2 of A, using 2- the “exact=TRUE” for an esti-
norm mate)
98 Condition number cond(A) = cond(A,inf) 1/rcond(A,’I’)
kAk∞ kA−1 k∞ of A, using
infinity-norm
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 10

No. Description Matlab R

99 Compute mean of all ele- mean(v) for vectors, mean(A(:)) for mean(v) or mean(A)
ments in vector or matrix matrices
100 Compute means of columns mean(A) colMeans(A)
of a matrix
101 Compute means of rows of a mean(A,2) rowMeans(A)
matrix
102 Compute standard deviation std(v) for vectors, std(A(:)) for sd(v) for vectors, sd(c(A)) for ma-
of all elements in vector or matrices. This normalizes by n − 1. trices. This normalizes by n − 1.
matrix Use std(v,1) to normalize by n.
103 Compute standard deviations std(A). This normalizes by n − 1. sd(A). This normalizes by n − 1.
of columns of a matrix Use std(A,1) to normalize by n
104 Compute standard deviations std(A,0,2) to normalize by n − 1, apply(A,1,sd). This normalizes by
of rows of a matrix std(A,1,2) to normalize by n n − 1.
105 Compute variance of all ele- var(v) for vectors, var(A(:)) for var(v) for vectors, var(c(A)) for
ments in vector or matrix matrices. This normalizes by n − 1. matrices. This normalizes by n − 1.
Use var(v,1) to normalize by n.
106 Compute variance of columns var(A). This normalizes by n − 1. apply(A,2,var). This normalizes by
of a matrix Use var(A,1) to normalize by n n − 1.
107 Compute variance of rows of var(A,0,2) to normalize by n − 1, apply(A,1,var). This normalizes by
a matrix var(A,1,2) to normalize by n n − 1.
108 Compute covariance for two cov(v,w) computes the 2 × 2 co- cov(v,w)
vectors of observations variance matrix; the off-diagonal ele-
ments give the desired covariance
109 Compute covariance matrix, cov(A) var(A) or cov(A)
giving covariances between
columns of matrix A
110 Given matrices A and B, I don’t know of a direct way to cov(A,B)
build covariance matrix C do this in Matlab. But one way is
where cij is the covariance be- [Y,X]=meshgrid(std(B),std(A));
tween column i of A and col- X.*Y.*corr(A,B)
umn j of B
111 Compute Pearson’s linear corr(v,w) Note: v and w must cor(v,w)
correlation coefficient be- be column vectors. To make it
tween elements of vectors v work regardless of whether they
and w are row or column vectors, do
corr(v(:),w(:))
112 Compute Kendall’s tau corre- corr(v,w,’type’,’kendall’) cor(v,w,method=’kendall’)
lation statistic for vectors v
and w
113 Compute Spearman’s rho corr(v,w,’type’,’spearman’) cor(v,w,method=’spearman’)
correlation statistic for
vectors v and w
114 Compute pairwise Pearson’s corr(A) The ’type’ argument may cor(A) The method argument may
correlation coefficient be- also be used as in the previous two also be used as in the previous two
tween columns of matrix items items
A
115 Compute matrix C of pair- corr(A,B) The ’type’ argument cor(A,B) The method argument
wise Pearson’s correlation co- may also be used as just above may also be used as just above
efficients between each pair of
columns of matrices A and B,
i.e. so cij is the correlation
between column i of A and
column j of B
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 11

No. Description Matlab R

116 Compute sum of all elements sum(v) for vectors, sum(A(:)) for sum(v) or sum(A)
in vector or matrix matrices
117 Compute sums of columns of sum(A) colSums(A)
matrix
118 Compute sums of rows of ma- sum(A,2) rowSums(A)
trix
119 Compute
P∞ matrix exponential expm(A) expm(Matrix(A)), but this is part of
eA = k=0 Ak /k! the Matrix package which you’ll need
to install (see item 316 for how to in-
stall/load packages).
120 Compute cumulative sum of cumsum(v) cumsum(v)
values in vector
121 Compute cumulative sums of cumsum(A) apply(A,2,cumsum)
columns of matrix
122 Compute cumulative sums of cumsum(A,2) t(apply(A,1,cumsum))
rows of matrix
123 Compute cumulative sum cumsum(A(:)) cumsum(A)
of all elements of matrix
(column-by-column)
124 Cumulative product of ele- cumprod(v) (Can also be used in the cumprod(v) (Can also be used in the
ments in vector v various ways cumsum can) various ways cumsum can)
125 Cumulative minimum or I don’t know of an easy way to do cummin(v) or cummax(v)
maximum of elements in this in Matlab
vector v
126 Compute differences between diff(v) diff(v)
consecutive elements of vec-
tor v. Result is a vector
w 1 element shorter than v,
where element i of w is ele-
ment i + 1 of v minus element
i of v
127 Make a vector y the same size z = [3 4]; y = z((x > 5)+1) y = ifelse(x > 5, 4, 3)
as vector x, which equals 4
everywhere that x is greater
than 5, and equals 3 every-
where else (done via a vector-
ized computation).
128 Compute minimum of values min(v) min(v)
in vector v
129 Compute minimum of all val- min(A(:)) min(A)
ues in matrix A
130 Compute minimum value of min(A) (returns a row vector) apply(A,2,min) (returns a vector)
each column of matrix A
131 Compute minimum value of min(A, [ ], 2) (returns a column apply(A,1,min) (returns a vector)
each row of matrix A vector)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 12

No. Description Matlab R

132 Given matrices A and B, min(A,B) pmin(A,B)
compute a matrix where each
element is the minimum of
the corresponding elements of
A and B
133 Given matrix A and scalar min(A,c) pmin(A,c)
c, compute a matrix where
each element is the minimum
of c and the corresponding el-
ement of A
134 Find minimum among all val- min([A(:) ; B(:)]) min(A,B)
ues in matrices A and B
135 Find index of the first time [y,ind] = min(v) ind = which.min(v)
min(v) appears in v, and
store that index in ind
Notes:

• Matlab and R both have a max function (and R has pmax and which.max as well) which behaves
in the same ways as min but to compute maxima rather than minima.

• Functions like exp, sin, sqrt etc. will operate on arrays in both Matlab and R, doing the
computations for each element of the matrix.
No. Description Matlab R
136 Number of rows in A size(A,1) nrow(A)
137 Number of columns in A size(A,2) ncol(A)
138 Dimensions of A, listed in a size(A) dim(A)
vector
139 Number of elements in vector length(v) length(v)
v
140 Total number of elements in numel(A) length(A)
matrix A
141 Max. dimension of A length(A) max(dim(A))
142 Sort values in vector v sort(v) sort(v)
143 Sort values in v, putting [s,idx]=sort(v) tmp=sort(v,index.return=TRUE);
sorted values in s, and indices s=tmp$x; idx=tmp$ix
in idx, in the sense that s[k]
= x[idx[k]]
144 Sort the order of the rows of sortrows(m) m[order(m[,1]),]
matrix m This sorts according to the first col- This only sorts according to the first
umn, then uses column 2 to break column. To use column 2 to break
ties, then column 3 for remaining ties, and then column 3 to break fur-
ties, etc. Complex numbers are ther ties, do
sorted by abs(x), and ties are then m[order(m[,1], m[,2], m[,3]),]
broken by angle(x). Complex numbers are sorted first by
real part, then by imaginary part.
145 Sort order of rows of matrix sortrows(m, [c1 c2 c2]) m[order(m[,c1], m[,c2],
m, specifying to use columns m[,c3]),]
c1, c2, c3 as the sorting
“keys”
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 13

No. Description Matlab R

146 Same as previous item, but sortrows(m, [-c1 -c2 c2]) m[order(-m[,c1], -m[,c2],
sort in decreasing order for m[,c3]),]
columns c1 and c2
147 Sort order of rows of matrix [y,i] = sortrows(m) i=order(m[1,]); y=m[i,]
m, and keep indices used for
sorting
148 To count how many values in sum((v > 4) & (v <= 7)) sum((v > 4) & (v <= 7))
the vector v are between 4
and 7 (inclusive on the upper
end)
149 Given vector v, return list of find(v > 5) which(v > 5)
indices of elements of v which
are greater than 5
150 Given matrix A, return list find(A > 5) which(A > 5)
of indices of elements of A
which are greater than 5, us-
ing single-indexing
151 Given matrix A, generate [r,c] = find(A > 5) w = which(A > 5, arr.ind=TRUE);
vectors r and c giving rows r=w[,1]; c=w[,2]
and columns of elements of A
which are greater than 5
152 Given vector x (of presum- v = unique(x); c = hist(x,v); w=table(x); c=as.numeric(w);
ably discrete values), build a v=as.numeric(names(w))
vector v listing unique val-
ues in x, and corresponding
vector c indicating how many
times those values appear in
x
153 Given vector x (of presum- [c,m] = hist(x,k) w=hist(x,seq(min(x),max(x),
ably continuous values), di- length.out=k+1), plot=FALSE);
vide the range of values into k m=w$mids; c=w$counts
equally-sized bins, and build
a vector m containing the
midpoints of the bins and a
corresponding vector c con-
taining the counts of values in
the bins
154 Convolution / polynomial conv(x,y) convolve(x,rev(y),type=’open’)
multiplication (given vectors Note: the accuracy of this is not
x and y containing polyno- as good as Matlab; e.g. doing
mial coefficients, their convo- v=c(1,-1); for (i in 2:20)
lution is a vector containing v=convolve(v,c(-i,1),
coefficients of the product of type=’open’) to generate the
the two polynomials) 20th -degree
Q20 Wilkinson polynomial
W (x) = i=1 (x−i) gives a coefficient
of ≈ −780.19 for x19 , rather than the
correct value -210.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 14

3.4 Root-finding
No. Description Matlab R
155 Find roots of polynomial roots(v) polyroot(rev(v)) (This function
whose coefficients are stored really wants the vector to have the
in vector v (coefficients in v constant coefficient first in v; rev re-
are highest-order first) verses their order to achieve this.)
156 Find zero (root) of a function Define function f(x), then do Define function f(x), then do
f (x) of one variable fzero(f,x0) to search for a root uniroot(f, c(a,b)) to find a root
near x0, or fzero(f,[a b]) to find between a and b, assuming the sign
a root between a and b, assuming of f (x) differs at x = a and x = b.
the sign of f (x) differs at x = a Default forward error tolerance (i.e.
and x = b. Default forward error error in x) is fourth root of machine
tolerance (i.e. error in x) is machine epsilon, (ǫmach )0.25 . To specify e.g.
epsilon ǫmach . a tolerance of 2−52 , do uniroot(f,
c(a,b), tol=2^-52).

3.5 Function optimization/minimization

No. Description Matlab R
157 Find value m which mini- Define function f(x), then do Define function f(x), then do
mizes a function f (x) of one
variable within the interval m = fminbnd(f, a, b) m = optimize(f,c(a,b))$minimum
from a to b
158 Find value m which mini- Define function f(x,p1,p2), then use Define function f(x,p1,p2), then:
mizes a function f (x, p1 , p2 ) an “anonymous function”:
with given extra parameters # first define values for p1
(but minimization is only oc- % first define values for p1 # and p2, and then do:
curing over the first argu- % and p2, and then do: m = optimize(f, c(a,b), p1=p1,
ment), in the interval from a m=fminbnd(@(x) f(x,p1,p2),a,b) p2=p2)$minimum
to b.
159 Find values of x, y, z which First write function f(v) which ac- First write function f(v) which ac-
minimize function f (x, y, z), cepts a vector argument v containing cepts a vector argument v containing
using a starting guess of x = values of x, y, and z, and returns the values of x, y, and z, and returns the
1, y = 2.2, and z = 3.4. scalar value f (x, y, z), then do: scalar value f (x, y, z), then do:

fminsearch(@f,[1 2.2 3.4]) optim(c(1,2.2,3.4),f)$par

160 Find values of x, y, z First write function f(v,p1,p2) First write function f(v,p1,p2) which
which minimize function which accepts a vector argument accepts a vector argument v contain-
f (x, y, z, p1 , p2 ), using a v containing values of x, y, and ing values of x, y, and z, along with
starting guess of x = 1, z, along with the extra parame- the extra parameters, and returns the
y = 2.2, and z = 3.4, where ters, and returns the scalar value scalar value f (x, y, z, p1 , p2 ), then do:
the function takes some extra f (x, y, z, p1 , p2 ), then do:
parameters (useful e.g. for optim(c(1,2.2,3.4), f, p1=p1,
doing things like nonlinear fminsearch(@f,[1 2.2 3.4], ... p2=p2)$par
least-squares optimization [ ], p1, p2)
where you pass in some data Or use an anonymous function:
vectors as extra parameters).
fminsearch(@(x) f(x,p1,p2), ...
[1 2.2 3.4])
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 15

3.6 Numerical integration / quadrature

No. Description Matlab R
161 Numerically integrate func- quad(f,a,b) uses adaptive Simp- integrate(f,a,b) uses adaptive
tion f (x) over interval from son’s quadrature, with a default quadrature with default absolute
a to b absolute tolerance of 10−6 . To and relative error tolerances being
specify absolute tolerance, use the fourth root of machine epsilon,
quad(f,a,b,tol) (ǫmach )0.25 ≈ 1.22 × 10−4 . Tol-
erances can be specified by using
integrate(f,a,b, rel.tol=tol1,
abs.tol=tol2). Note that the func-
tion f must be written to work even
when given a vector of x values as its
argument.
162 Simple trapezoidal numerical trapz(x,y) sum(diff(x)*(y[-length(y)]+
integration using (x, y) values y[-1])/2)
in vectors x and y
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 16

3.7 Curve fitting

No. Description Matlab R
163 Fit the line y = c1 x + c0 to
data in vectors x and y. p = polyfit(x,y,1) p = coef(lm(y ~ x))

The return vector p has the coeffi- The return vector p has the coeffi-
cients in descending order, i.e. p(1) cients in ascending order, i.e. p[1] is
is c1 , and p(2) is c0 . c0 , and p[2] is c1 .
164 Fit the quadratic polynomial
y = c2 x2 + c1 x + c0 to data in p = polyfit(x,y,2) p = coef(lm(y ~ x + I(x^2)))
vectors x and y.
The return vector p has the coeffi- The return vector p has the coeffi-
cients in descending order, i.e. p(1) cients in ascending order, i.e. p[1] is
is c2 , p(2) is c1 , and p(3) is c0 . c0 , p[2] is c1 , and p[3] is c2 .
165 Fit nth degree polynomial There isn’t a simple function built
y = cn xn + cn−1 xn−1 + . . . + p = polyfit(x,y,n) into the standard R distribution to do
c1 x + c0 to data in vectors x this, but see the polyreg function in
and y. The return vector p has the coeffi- the mda package (see item 316 for
cients in descending order, p(1) is how to install/load packages).
cn , p(2) is cn−1 , etc.
166 Fit the quadratic polynomial (I don’t know a simple way do this
with zero intercept, y = in Matlab, other than to write a p=coef(lm(y ~ -1 + x + I(x^2)))
c2 x2 + c1 x to data in vectors function which computes the sum
x and y. of squared residuals and use fmin- The return vector p has the coeffi-
search on that function. There is cients in ascending order, i.e. p[1] is
likely an easy way to do it in the c1 , and p[2] is c2 .
Statistics Toolbox.)
167 Fit natural cubic spline pp=csape(x,y,’variational’); tmp=spline(x,y,method=’natural’,
(S ′′ (x) = 0 at both end- yy=ppval(pp,xx) but note that xout=xx); yy=tmp$y
points) to points (xi , yi ) csape is in Matlab’s Spline
whose coordinates are in Toolbox
vectors x and y; evaluate at
points whose x coordinates
are in vector xx, storing
corresponding y’s in yy
168 Fit cubic spline using I’m not aware of a function to do this tmp=spline(x,y,xout=xx);
Forsythe, Malcolm and in Matlab yy=tmp$y
Moler method (third deriva-
tives at endpoints match
third derivatives of exact cu-
bics through the four points
at each end) to points (xi , yi )
whose coordinates are in
vectors x and y; evaluate at
points whose x coordinates
are in vector xx, storing
corresponding y’s in yy
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 17

No. Description Matlab R

169 Fit cubic spline such that pp=csape(x,y); yy=ppval(pp,xx) I’m not aware of a function to do this
first derivatives at endpoints but csape is in Matlab’s Spline in R
match first derivatives of ex- Toolbox
act cubics through the four
points at each end) to points
(xi , yi ) whose coordinates are
in vectors x and y; evaluate
at points whose x coordinates
are in vector xx, storing cor-
responding y’s in yy
170 Fit cubic spline with periodic pp=csape(x,y,’periodic’); tmp=spline(x,y,method=
boundaries, i.e. so that first yy=ppval(pp,xx) but csape is in ’periodic’, xout=xx); yy=tmp$y
and second derivatives match Matlab’s Spline Toolbox
at the left and right ends
(the first and last y values
of the provided data should
also agree), to points (xi , yi )
whose coordinates are in vec-
tors x and y; evaluate at
points whose x coordinates
are in vector xx, storing cor-
responding y’s in yy
171 Fit cubic spline with “not- yy=spline(x,y,xx) I’m not aware of a function to do this
a-knot” conditions (the first in R
two piecewise cubics coincide,
as do the last two), to points
(xi , yi ) whose coordinates are
in vectors x and y; evaluate
at points whose x coordinates
are in vector xx, storing cor-
responding y’s in yy

4 Conditionals, control structure, loops

No. Description Matlab R
172 “for” loops over values in a If only one command inside the loop:
vector v (the vector v is of- for i=v
ten constructed via a:b) for (i in v)
command1 command
command2
end or

for (i in v) command

If multiple commands inside the loop:

for (i in v) {
command1
command2
}
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 18

No. Description Matlab R

173 “if” statements with no else If only one command inside the clause:
clause if cond if (cond)
command1 command
command2
end or

if (cond) command

If multiple commands:
if (cond) {
command1
command2
}

174 “if/else” statement If one command in clauses:

if cond if (cond)
command1 command1 else
command2 command2
else
command3 or
command4
end if (cond) cmd1 else cmd2

If multiple commands:
Note: Matlab also has an “elseif”
statement, e.g.: if (cond) {
command1
if cond1
command2
command1
} else {
elseif cond2
command3
command2
command4
elseif cond3
}
command3
else Warning: the “else” must be on the
command4 same line as command1 or the “}”
end (when typed interactively at the com-
mand prompt), otherwise R thinks the
“if” statement was finished and gives
an error.
R does not have an “elseif” state-
ment.

Logical comparisons which can be used on scalars in “if” statements, or which operate element-by-
element on vectors/matrices:
Matlab R Description
x<a x <a True if x is less than a
x>a x >a True if x is greater than a
x <= a x <= a True if x is less than or equal to a
x >= a x >= a True if x is greater than or equal to a
x == a x == a True if x is equal to a
x ~= a x != a True if x is not equal to a
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 19
Scalar logical operators:

Description Matlab R
a AND b a && b a && b
a OR b a || b a || b
a XOR b xor(a,b) xor(a,b)
NOT a ~a !a
The && and || operators are short-circuiting, i.e. && stops as soon as any of its terms are FALSE, and
|| stops as soon as any of its terms are TRUE.

Matrix logical operators (they operate element-by-element):

Description Matlab R
a AND b a & b a & b
a OR b a | b a | b
a XOR b xor(a,b) xor(a,b)
NOT a ~a !a

No. Description Matlab R

175 To test whether a scalar value if ((x > 4) && (x <= 7)) if ((x > 4) && (x <= 7))
x is between 4 and 7 (inclu-
sive on the upper end)
176 To count how many values in sum((x > 4) & (x <= 7)) sum((x > 4) & (x <= 7))
the vector x are between 4
and 7 (inclusive on the upper
end)
177 Test whether all values in all(v) all(v)
a logical/boolean vector are
TRUE
178 Test whether any values in any(v) any(v)
a logical/boolean vector are
TRUE
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 20

No. Description Matlab R

179 “while” statements to do iter-
ation (useful when you don’t mysum = 0; mysum = 0
know ahead of time how mysumsqr = 0; mysumsqr = 0
many iterations you’ll need). while (mysum < 20) while (mysum < 20) {
E.g. to add uniform ran- r = rand; r = runif(1)
dom numbers between 0 and mysum = mysum + r; mysum = mysum + r
1 (and their squares) until mysumsqr = mysumsqr + r^2; mysumsqr = mysumsqr + r^2
their sum is greater than 20: end }

(As with “if” statements and “for”

loops, the curly brackets are not nec-
essary if there’s only one statement in-
side the “while” loop.)
180 More flow control: these com- break and continue break and next
mands exit or move on to the
next iteration of the inner-
most while or for loop, re-
spectively.
181 “Switch” statements for inte- R doesn’t have a switch statement ca-
gers switch (x) pable of doing this. It has a function
case 10 which is fairly limited for integers, but
disp(’ten’) can which do string matching. See
case {12,13} ?switch for more. But a basic ex-
disp(’dozen (bakers?)’) ample of what it can do for integers is
otherwise below, showing that you can use it to
disp(’unrecognized’) return different expressions based on
end whether a value is 1, 2, . . ..

mystr = switch(x, ’one’, ’two’,

’three’); print(mystr)

Note that switch returns NULL if x is

larger than 3 in the above case. Also,
continuous values of x will be trun-
cated to integers.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 21

5 Functions, ODEs
No. Description Matlab R
182 Implement a function Put the following in add.m: Enter the following, or put it in a file
add(x,y) and source that file:
function retval=add(x,y)
retval = x+y; add = function(x,y) {
return(x+y)
}
Then you can do e.g. add(2,3)
Then you can do e.g. add(2,3).
Note, the curly brackets aren’t needed
if your function only has one line.
Also, the return keyword is optional
in the above example, as the value of
the last expression in a function gets
returned, so just x+y would work
too.
183 Implement a function Write function as follows: Write function as follows:
f(x,y,z) which returns mul-
tiple values, and store those function [a,b] = f(x,y,z) f = function(x,y,z) {
return values in variables u a = x*y+z; b=2*sin(x-z); a = x*y+z; b=2*sin(x-z)
and v return(list(a,b))
Then call the function by doing: }
[u,v] = f(2,8,12)
Then call the function by do-
ing: tmp=f(2,8,12); u=tmp[[1]];
v=tmp[[2]]. The above is most gen-
eral, and will work even when u and
v are different types of data. If they
are both scalars, the function could
simply return them packed in a vec-
tor, i.e. return(c(a,b)). If they
are vectors of the same size, the func-
tion could return them packed to-
gether into the columns of a matrix,
i.e. return(cbind(a,b)).
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 22

No. Description Matlab R

184 Numerically solve ODE First implement function First implement function
dx/dt = 5x from t = 3 to
t = 12 with initial condition function retval=f(t,x) f = function(t,x,parms) {
x(3) = 7 retval = 5*x; return(list(5*x))
}
Then do ode45(@f,[3,12],7)
to plot solution, or Then do y=lsoda(7, seq(3,12,
[t,x]=ode45(@f,[3,12],7) to get 0.1), f,NA) to obtain solution
back vector t containing time values values at times 3, 3.1, 3.2, . . . , 11.9, 12.
and vector x containing correspond- The first column of y, namely y[,1]
ing function values. If you want contains the time values; the second
function values at specific times, column y[,2] contains the corre-
e.g. 3, 3.1, 3.2, . . . , 11.9, 12, you can sponding function values. Note:
do [t,x]=ode45(@f,3:0.1:12,7). lsoda is part of the deSolve package
Note: in older versions of Matlab, (see item 316 for how to install/load
use ’f’ instead of @f. packages).
185 Numerically solve system of First implement function First implement function
ODEs dw/dt = 5w, dz/dt =
3w + 7z from t = 3 to t = 12 function retval=myfunc(t,x) myfunc = function(t,x,parms) {
with initial conditions w(3) = w = x(1); z = x(2); w = x[1]; z = x[2];
7, z(3) = 8.2 retval = zeros(2,1); return(list(c(5*w, 3*w+7*z)))
retval(1) = 5*w; }
retval(2) = 3*w + 7*z;
Then do y=lsoda(c(7,8.2),
Then do seq(3,12, 0.1), myfunc,NA)
ode45(@myfunc,[3,12],[7; to obtain solution values at times
8.2]) to plot solution, or 3, 3.1, 3.2, . . . , 11.9, 12. The first
[t,x]=ode45(@myfunc,[3,12],[7; column of y, namely y[,1] contains
8.2]) to get back vector t contain- the time values; the second column
ing time values and matrix x, whose y[,2] contains the corresponding
first column containing correspond- values of w(t); and the third column
ing w(t) values and second column contains z(t). Note: lsoda is part of
contains z(t) values. If you want the deSolve package (see item 316
function values at specific times, e.g. for how to install/load packages).
3, 3.1, 3.2, . . . , 11.9, 12, you can do
[t,x]=ode45(@myfunc,3:0.1:12,[7;
8.2]). Note: in older versions of
Matlab, use ’f’ instead of @f.
186 Pass parameters such as r = First implement function First implement function
1.3 and K = 50 to an ODE
function from the command function retval=func2(t,x,r,K) func2=function(t,x,parms) {
line, solving dx/dt = rx(1 − retval = r*x*(1-x/K) r=parms[1]; K=parms[2]
x/K) from t = 0 to t = 20 return(list(r*x*(1-x/K)))
Then do ode45(@func2,[0 20], }
with initial condition x(0) = 2.5, [ ], 1.3, 50). The empty
2.5. matrix is necessary between the ini- Then do
tial condition and the beginning of
your extra parameters. y=lsoda(2.5,seq(0,20,0.1),
func2,c(1.3,50))

Note: lsoda is part of the deSolve

package (see item 316 for how to in-
stall/load packages).
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 23

6 Probability and random values

No. Description Matlab R
187 Generate a continuous uni- rand runif(1)
form random value between 0
and 1
188 Generate vector of n uniform rand(n,1) or rand(1,n) runif(n)
random vals between 0 and 1
189 Generate m×n matrix of uni- rand(m,n) matrix(runif(m*n),m,n) or just
form random values between matrix(runif(m*n),m)
0 and 1
190 Generate m×n matrix of con- a+rand(m,n)*(b-a) or if you matrix(runif(m*n,a,b),m)
tinuous uniform random val- have the Statistics toolbox then
ues between a and b unifrnd(a,b,m,n)
191 Generate a random integer floor(k*rand) + 1 floor(k*runif(1)) + 1 Note:
between 1 and k sample(k)[1] would also work, but I
believe in general will be less efficient,
because that actually generates many
random numbers and then just uses
one of them.
192 Generate m×n matrix of dis- floor(k*rand(m,n))+1 or if you floor(k*matrix(runif(m*n),m))+1
crete uniform random inte- have the Statistics toolbox then
gers between 1 and k unidrnd(k,m,n)
193 Generate m × n matrix where (rand(m,n)<p)*1 Note: multiplying (matrix(runif(m,n),m)<p)*1
each entry is 1 with probabil- by 1 turns the logical (true/false) re- (Note: multiplying by 1 turns the
ity p, otherwise is 0 sult back into numeric values. You logical (true/false) result back into
could also do double(rand(m,n)<p) numeric values; using as.numeric()
to do it would lose the shape of the
matrix.)
194 Generate m × n matrix where b + (a-b)*(rand(m,n)<p) b + (a-b)*(matrix(
each entry is a with probabil- runif(m,n),m)<p)
ity p, otherwise is b
195 Generate a random integer floor((b-a+1)*rand)+a or if you floor((b-a+1)*runif(1))+a
between a and b inclusive have the Statistics toolbox then
unidrnd(b-a+1)+a-1
196 Flip a coin which comes up
heads with probability p, and if (rand < p) if (runif(1) < p) {
perform some action if it does ...some commands... ...some commands...
come up heads end }

197 Generate a random permuta- randperm(n) sample(n)

tion of the integers 1, 2, . . . , n
198 Generate a random selection [s,idx]=sort(rand(n,1)); ri=sample(n,k)
of k unique integers between ri=idx(1:k) or another way is
1 and n (i.e. sampling with- ri=randperm(n); ri=ri(1:k). Or
out replacement) if you have the Statistics Toolbox,
then randsample(n,k)
199 Choose k values (with re- L=length(v); w=sample(v,k,replace=TRUE)
placement) from the vector v, w=v(floor(L*rand(k,1))+1) Or,
storing result in w if you have the Statistics Toolbox,
w=randsample(v,k,replace=true)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 24

No. Description Matlab R

200 Choose k values (without re- L=length(v); ri=randperm(L); w=sample(v,k,replace=FALSE)
placement) from the vector v, ri=ri(1:k); w=v(ri) Or, if
storing result in w you have the Statistics Toolbox,
w=randsample(v,k,replace=false)
201 Set the random-number gen- rand(’state’, 12) Note: begin- set.seed(12)
erator back to a known state ning in Matlab 7.7, use this in-
(useful to do at the beginning stead: RandStream(’mt19937ar’,
of a stochastic simulation ’Seed’, 12) though the previous
when debugging, so you’ll get method is still supported for now.
the same sequence of random
numbers each time)

Note that the “*rnd,” “*pdf,” and “*cdf” functions described below are all part of the Matlab
Statistics Toolbox, and not part of the core Matlab distribution.
No. Description Matlab R
202 Generate a random value binornd(n,p) rbinom(1,n,p)
from the binomial(n, p) dis-
tribution
203 Generate a random value poissrnd(lambda) rpois(1,lambda)
from the Poisson distribution
with parameter λ
204 Generate a random value exprnd(mu) or -mu*log(rand) will rexp(1, 1/mu)
from the exponential distri- work even without the Statistics
bution with mean µ Toolbox.
205 Generate a random value unidrnd(k) or floor(rand*k)+1 sample(k,1)
from the discrete uniform dis- will work even without the Statistics
tribution on integers 1 . . . k Toolbox.
206 Generate n iid random values unidrnd(k,n,1) or sample(k,n,replace=TRUE)
from the discrete uniform dis- floor(rand(n,1)*k)+1 will work
tribution on integers 1 . . . k even without the Statistics Toolbox.
207 Generate a random value unifrnd(a,b) or (b-a)*rand + a runif(1,a,b)
from the continuous uniform will work even without the Statistics
distribution on the interval Toolbox.
(a, b)
208 Generate a random value normrnd(mu,sigma) or rnorm(1,mu,sigma)
from the normal distribution mu + sigma*randn will work
with mean µ and standard even without the Statistics Toolbox.
deviation σ
209 Generate a random vector mnrnd(n,p) rmultinom(1,n,p)
from the multinomial distri-
bution, with n trials and
probability vector p
210 Generate j random vectors mnrnd(n,p,j) rmultinom(j,n,p)
from the multinomial distri- The vectors are returned as rows of The vectors are returned as columns
bution, with n trials and a matrix of a matrix
probability vector p
Notes:
• The Matlab “*rnd” functions above can all take additional r,c arguments to build an r × c matrix
of iid random values. E.g. poissrnd(3.5,4,7) for a 4 × 7 matrix of iid values from the Poisson
distribution with mean λ = 3.5. The unidrnd(k,n,1) command above is an example of this, to
generate a k × 1 column vector.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 25
• The first parameter of the R “r*” functions above specifies how many values are desired. E.g. to
generate 28 iid random values from a Poisson distribution with mean 3.5, use rpois(28,3.5). To
get a 4 × 7 matrix of such values, use matrix(rpois(28,3.5),4).

No. Description Matlab R

211 Compute probability that binopdf(x,n,p) or dbinom(x,n,p)
a random variable from the nchoosek(n,x)*p^x*(1-p)^(n-x)
Binomial(n, p) distribution will work even without the Statistics
has value x (i.e. the density, Toolbox, as long as n and x are
or pdf). non-negative integers and 0 ≤ p
≤ 1.
212 Compute probability that a poisspdf(x,lambda) or dpois(x,lambda)
random variable from the exp(-lambda)*lambda^x /
Poisson(λ) distribution has factorial(x) will work even
value x. without the Statistics Toolbox, as
long as x is a non-negative integer
and lambda ≥ 0.
213 Compute probability density exppdf(x,mu) or dexp(x,1/mu)
function at x for a random (x>=0)*exp(-x/mu)/mu will work
variable from the exponential even without the Statistics Toolbox,
distribution with mean µ. as long as mu is positive.
214 Compute probability density normpdf(x,mu,sigma) or dnorm(x,mu,sigma)
function at x for a random exp(-(x-mu)^2/(2*sigma^2))/
variable from the Normal dis- (sqrt(2*pi)*sigma) will work even
tribution with mean µ and without the Statistics Toolbox.
standard deviation σ.
215 Compute probability density unifpdf(x,a,b) or dunif(x,a,b)
function at x for a random ((x>=a)&&(x<=b))/(b-a) will
variable from the continuous work even without the Statistics
uniform distribution on inter- Toolbox.
val (a, b).
216 Compute probability that a unidpdf(x,n) or ((x==floor(x)) ((x==round(x)) && (x >= 1) &&
random variable from the dis-&& (x>=1)&&(x<=n))/n will work (x <= n))/n
crete uniform distribution oneven without the Statistics Toolbox,
integers 1 . . . n has value x.
as long as n is a positive integer.
217 Compute probability that mnpdf(x,p) dmultinom(x,prob=p)
a random vector from the Note: vector p must sum to one.
multinomial distribution
Also, x and p can be vectors of
with probability vector p~ has
length k, or if one or both are m × k
the value ~x matrices then the computations are
performed for each row.
Note: one or more of the parameters in the above “*pdf” (Matlab) or “d*” (R) functions can be
vectors, but they must be the same size. Scalars are promoted to arrays of the appropriate size.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 26
The corresponding CDF functions are below:
No. Description Matlab R
218 Compute probability that a binocdf(x,n,p). Without the pbinom(x,n,p)
random variable from the Statistics Toolbox, as long
Binomial(n, p) distribution is as n is a non-negative in-
less than or equal to x (i.e. teger, this will work: r =
the cumulative distribution 0:floor(x); sum(factorial(n)./
function, or cdf). (factorial(r).*factorial(n-r))
.*p.^r.*(1-p).^(n-r)). (Un-
fortunately, Matlab’s nchoosek
function won’t take a vector argu-
ment for k.)
219 Compute probability that a poisscdf(x,lambda). With- ppois(x,lambda)
random variable from the out the Statistics Toolbox, as
Poisson(λ) distribution is less long as lambda ≥ 0, this
than or equal to x. will work: r = 0:floor(x);
sum(exp(-lambda)*lambda.^r
./factorial(r))
220 Compute cumulative distri- expcdf(x,mu) or pexp(x,1/mu)
bution function at x for a (x>=0)*(1-exp(-x/mu)) will
random variable from the ex- work even without the Statistics
ponential distribution with Toolbox, as long as mu is positive.
mean µ.
221 Compute cumulative distri- normcdf(x,mu,sigma) or 1/2 - pnorm(x,mu,sigma)
bution function at x for a ran- erf(-(x-mu)/(sigma*sqrt(2)))/2
dom variable from the Nor- will work even without the Statis-
mal distribution with mean µ tics Toolbox, as long as sigma is
and standard deviation σ. positive.
222 Compute cumulative distri- unifcdf(x,a,b) or punif(x,a,b)
bution function at x for a ran- (x>a)*(min(x,b)-a)/(b-a) will
dom variable from the contin- work even without the Statistics
uous uniform distribution on Toolbox, as long as b > a.
interval (a, b).
223 Compute probability that a unidcdf(x,n) or (x>=1)*min(floor(x),n)/n
random variable from the dis- (x>=1)*min(floor(x),n)/n will
crete uniform distribution on work even without the Statistics
integers 1 . . . n is less than or Toolbox, as long as n is a positive
equal to x. integer.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 27

7 Graphics
7.1 Various types of plotting
No. Description Matlab R
224 Create a new figure window figure dev.new() Notes: internally, on Win-
dows this calls windows(), on MacOS
it calls quartz(), and on Linux it
calls x11(). x11() is also available
on MacOS. In R sometime after 2.7.0,
X11 graphics started doing antialising
by default, which makes plots look
smoother but takes longer to draw.
If you are using R on Linux (which
uses X11 graphics by default) or
X11 graphics on MacOS and notice
that figure plotting is extremely slow
(especially if making many plots),
do this before calling dev.new():
X11.options(type=’Xlib’) or
X11.options(antialias=’none’).
Or just use e.g. x11(type=’Xlib’)
to make new figure windows. They
are uglier (lines are more jagged), but
render much more quickly.
225 Select figure number n figure(n) (will create the figure if it dev.set(n) (returns the actual de-
doesn’t exist) vice selected; will be different from n
if there is no figure device with num-
ber n)
226 Determine which figure win- gcf dev.cur()
dow is currently active
227 List open figure windows get(0,’children’) (The 0 handle dev.list()
refers to the root graphics object.)
228 Close figure window(s) close to close the current figure win- dev.off() to close the currently ac-
dow, close(n) to close a specified tive figure device, dev.off(n) to close
figure, and close all to close all fig- a specified one, and graphics.off()
ures to close all figure devices.
229 Plot points using open circles plot(x,y,’o’) plot(x,y)
230 Plot points using solid lines plot(x,y) plot(x,y,type=’l’) (Note: that’s a
lower-case ’L’, not the number 1)
231 Plotting: color, point mark- plot(x,y,str) where str is a
ers, linestyle string specifying color, point marker, plot(x,y,type=str1,
and/or linestyle (see table below) pch=arg2,col=str3,
(e.g. ’gs--’ for green squares with lty=arg4)
dashed line)

See tables below for possible values of

the 4 parameters
232 Plotting with logarithmic semilogx, semilogy, and loglog plot(..., log=’x’), plot(...,
axes functions take arguments like plot, log=’y’), and plot(...,
and plot with logarithmic scales for log=’xy’) plot with logarithmic
x, y, and both axes, respectively scales for x, y, and both axes,
respectively
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 28

No. Description Matlab R

233 Make bar graph where the x bar(x,y) Or just bar(y) if you only Can’t do this in R; but barplot(y)
coordinates of the bars are in want to specify heights. Note: if A makes a bar graph where you specify
x, and their heights are in y is a matrix, bar(A) interprets each the heights, barplot(y,w) also spec-
column as a separate set of observa- ifies the widths of the bars, and hist
tions, and each row as a different ob- can make plots like this too.
servation within a set. So a 20 × 2
matrix is plotted as 2 sets of 20 ob-
servations, while a 2 × 20 matrix is
plotted as 20 sets of 2 observations.
234 Make histogram of values in hist(x) hist(x)
x
235 Given vector x containing v=unique(x); c=hist(x,v); barplot(table(x))
integer values, make a bar bar(v,c)
graph where the x coordi-
nates of bars are the values,
and heights are the counts of
how many times the values
appear in x
236 Given vector x containing [c,m] = hist(x,k); bar(m,c) or hist(x,seq(min(x), max(x),
continuous values, lump the for slightly different plot style use length.out=k+1))
data into k bins and make a hist(x,k)
histogram / bar graph of the
binned data
237 Make a plot containing error- errorbar(x,y,s) errbar(x,y,y+s,y-s) Note: errbar
bars of height s above and be- is part of the Hmisc package (see
low (x, y) points item 316 for how to install/load pack-
ages).
238 Make a plot containing error- errorbar(x,y,b,a) errbar(x,y,y+a,y-b) Note: errbar
bars of height a above and b is part of the Hmisc package (see
below (x, y) points item 316 for how to install/load pack-
ages).
239 Other types of 2-D plots stem(x,y) and stairs(x,y) pie(v)
for other types of 2-D plots.
polar(theta,r) to use polar
coordinates for plotting.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 29

No. Description Matlab R

240 Make a 3-D plot of some data plot3(x,y,z) This works much like cloud(z~x*y) You can also use
points with given x, y, z co- plot, as far as plotting symbols, line- arguments pch and col as with
ordinates in the vectors x, y, types, and colors. plot. To make a 3-D plot with
and z. lines, do cloud(z~x*y,type=’l’,
panel.cloud=panel.3dwire)
241 Surface plot of data in matrix
A surf(A) persp(A)

You can then click on the small You can include shading in the im-
curved arrow in the figure window age via e.g. persp(A,shade=0.5).
(or choose “Rotate 3D” from the There are two viewing angles you
“Tools” menu), and then click and can also specify, among other pa-
drag the mouse in the figure to ro- rameters, e.g. persp(A, shade=0.5,
tate it in three dimensions. theta=50, phi=35).
242 Surface plot of f (x, y) =
√
sin(x + y) y for 100 values x = linspace(0,10,100); x = seq(0,10,len=100)
of x between 0 and 10, and y = linspace(2,8,90); y = seq(2,8,len=90)
90 values of y between 2 and [X,Y] = meshgrid(x,y); f = function(x,y)
8 Z = sin(X+Y).*sqrt(Y); return(sin(x+y)*sqrt(y))
surf(X,Y,Z) z = outer(x,y,f)
shading flat persp(x,y,z)

243 Other ways of plotting the mesh(X,Y,Z), surfc(X,Y,Z), contour(x,y,z) Or do

data from the previous com- surfl(X,Y,Z), contour(X,Y,Z), s=expand.grid(x=x,y=y), and
mand pcolor(X,Y,Z), then wireframe(z~x*y,s) or
waterfall(X,Y,Z). Also see the wireframe(z~x*y,s,shade=TRUE)
slice command. (Note: wireframe is part of the
lattice package; see item 316 for how
to load packages). If you have vectors
x, y, and z all the same length, you
can also do symbols(x,y,z).
244 Set axis ranges in a figure axis([x1 x2 y1 y2]) You have to do this when
window you make the plot, e.g.
plot(x,y,xlim=c(x1,x2),
ylim=c(y1,y2))
245 Add title to plot title(’somestring’) title(main=’somestring’)
adds a main title,
title(sub=’somestring’) adds
a subtitle. You can also include
main= and sub= arguments in a
plot command.
246 Add axis labels to plot xlabel(’somestring’) and title(xlab=’somestring’,
ylabel(’somestring’) ylab=’anotherstr’). You can
also include xlab= and ylab=
arguments in a plot command.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 30

No. Description Matlab R

247 Include Greek letters or sym- You can use basic TeX com- plot(x,y,xlab=
bols in plot axis labels mands, e.g. plot(x,y); expression(phi^2 + mu[’i,j’]))
xlabel(’\phi^2 + \mu_{i,j}’) or plot(x,y,xlab=expression(
or xlabel(’fecundity \phi’) paste(’fecundity ’, phi)))
See also help tex and parts of See also help(plotmath) and p.
doc text props for more about 98 of the R Graphics book by Paul
building labels using general LaTeX Murrell for more.
commands
248 Change font size to 16 in plot For the legends and numerical axis For on-screen graphics, do
labels labels, use set(gca, ’FontSize’, par(ps=16) followed by e.g. a plot
16), and for text labels on axes command. For PostScript or PDF
do e.g. xlabel(’my x var’, plots, add a pointsize=16 argument,
’FontSize’, 16) e.g. pdf(’myfile.pdf’, width=8,
height=8, pointsize=16) (see
items 264 and 265)
249 Add grid lines to plot grid on (and grid off to turn off) grid() Note that if you’ll be
printing the plot, the default style
for grid-lines is to use gray dot-
ted lines, which are almost invis-
ible on some printers. You may
want to do e.g. grid(lty=’dashed’,
col=’black’) to use black dashed
lines which are easier to see.
250 Add a text label to a plot text(x,y,’hello’) text(x,y,’hello’)
251 Add set of text labels to a s={’hi’, ’there’}; s=c(’hi’, ’there’);
plot. xv and yv are vectors. text(xv,yv,s) text(xv,yv,s)
252 Add an arrow to current plot, annotation(’arrow’, [xt xh], arrows(xt, yt, xh, yh)
with tail at (xt, yt) and head [yt yh]) Note: coordinates should
at (xh, yh) be normalized figure coordinates, not
coordinates within your displayed
axes. Find and download from The
Mathworks the file dsxy2figxy.m
which converts for you, then do this:
[fx,fy]=dsxy2figxy([xt xh],
[yt yh]); annotation(’arrow’,
fx, fy)
253 Add a double-headed arrow annotation(’doublearrow’, [x0 arrows(x0, y0, x1, y1, code=3)
to current plot, with coordi- x1], [y0 y1]) See note in previ-
nates (x0, y0) and (x1, y1) ous item about normalized figure
coordinates.
254 Add figure legend to top-left legend(’first’, ’second’, legend(’topleft’,
corner of plot ’Location’, ’NorthWest’) legend=c(’first’, ’second’),
col=c(’red’, ’blue’),
pch=c(’*’,’o’))
Matlab note: sometimes you build a graph piece-by-piece, and then want to manually add a legend
which doesn’t correspond with the order you put things in the plot. You can manually construct a legend
by plotting “invisible” things, then building the legend using them. E.g. to make a legend with black stars
and solid lines, and red circles and dashed lines: h1=plot(0,0,’k*-’); set(h1,’Visible’, ’off’);
h2=plot(0,0,’k*-’); set(h2,’Visible’, ’off’); legend([h1 h2], ’blah, ’whoa’). Just be sure
to choose coordinates for your “invisible” points within the current figure’s axis ranges.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 31

No. Description Matlab R

255 Adding more things to a fig- hold on means everything plotted points(...) and lines(...) work
ure from now on in that figure window is like plot, but add to what’s already
added to what’s already there. hold in the figure rather than clearing the
off turns it off. clf clears the figure figure first. points and lines are
and turns off hold. basically identical, just with different
default plotting styles. Note: axes
are not recalculated/redrawn when
adding more things to a figure.
256 Plot multiple data sets at plot(x,y) where x and y are 2-D matplot(x,y) where x and y are 2-D
once matrices. Each column of x is plot- matrices. Each column of x is plotted
ted against the corresponding col- against the corresponding column of
umn of y. If x has only one column, y. If x has only one column, it will be
it will be re-used. re-used.
257 Plot sin(2x) for x between 7 fplot(’sin(2*x)’, [7 18]) curve(sin(2*x), 7, 18, 200)
and 18 makes the plot, by sampling the
value of the function at 200 values
between 7 and 18 (if you don’t
specify the number of points, 101
is the default). You could do this
manually yourself via commands
like tmpx=seq(7,18,len=200);
plot(tmpx, sin(2*tmpx)).
258 Plot color image of integer image(A) to use array values as image(A) (it rotates the matrix 90 de-
values in matrix A raw indices into colormap, or grees counterclockwise: it draws row
imagesc(A) to automatically scale 1 of A as the left column of the im-
values first (these both draw row age, and column 1 of A as the bottom
1 of the matrix at the top of the row of the image, so the row number
image); or pcolor(A) (draws row is the x coord and column number is
1 of the matrix at the bottom of the y coord). It also rescales colors. If
the image). After using pcolor, you are using a colormap with k en-
try the commands shading flat or tries, but the value k does not appear
shading interp. in A, use image(A,zlim=c(1,k))
to avoid rescaling of colors. Or
e.g. image(A,zlim=c(0,k-1)) if you
want values 0 through k−1 to be plot-
ted using the k colors.
259 Add colorbar legend to image colorbar, after using image or Use filled.contour(A) rather
plot pcolor. than image(A), although it “blurs”
the data via interpolation, or
use levelplot(A) from the lat-
tice package (see item 316 for
how to load packages). To use
a colormap with the latter, do
e.g. levelplot(A,col.regions=
terrain.colors(100)).
260 Set colormap in image colormap(hot). Instead of hot, you image(A,col=terrain.colors(100)).
can also use gray, flag, jet (the The parameter 100 specifies the
default), cool, bone, copper, pink, length of the colormap. Other
hsv, prism. By default, the length colormaps are heat.colors(),
of the new colormap is the same as topo.colors(), and cm.colors().
the currently-installed one; use e.g.
colormap(hot(256)) to specify the
number of entries.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 32

No. Description Matlab R

261 Build your own colormap us- Use an n × 3 matrix; each row Use a vector of hexadecimal strings,
ing Red/Green/Blue triplets gives R,G,B intensities between 0 each beginning with ’#’ and giving
and 1. Can use as argument with R,G,B intensities between 00 and FF.
colormap. E.g. for 2 colors: mycmap E.g. c(’#80CC33’,’#3333B3’); can
= [0.5 0.8 0.2 ; 0.2 0.2 0.7] use as argument to col= parameter
to image. You can build such a
vector of strings from vectors of Red,
Green, and Blue intensities (each
between 0 and 1) as follows (for a
2-color example): r=c(0.5,0.2);
g=c(0.8,0.2); b=c(0.2,0.7);
mycolors=rgb(r,g,b).

Matlab plotting specifications, for use with plot, fplot, semilogx, semilogy, loglog, etc:
Symbol Color Symbol Marker Symbol Linestyle
b blue . point (.) - solid line
g green o circle (◦) : dotted line
r red x cross (×) -. dash-dot line
c cyan + plus sign (+) -- dashed line
m magenta * asterisk (∗)
y yellow s square (¤)
k black d diamond (♦)
w white v triangle (down) (▽)
^ triangle (up) (△)
< triangle (left) (⊳)
> triangle (right) (⊲)
p pentragram star
h hexagram star

R plotting specifications for col (color), pch (plotting character), and type arguments, for use with plot,
matplot, points, and lines:
col Description pch Description type Description
’blue’ Blue ’a’ a (similarly for other p points
characters, but see ’.’
below for an exception
’green’ Green 19 solid circle l lines
’red’ Red 20 bullet (smaller circle) b both
’cyan’ Cyan 21 open circle c lines part only of “b”
’magenta’ Magenta 22 square o lines, points overplotted
’yellow’ Yellow 23 diamond h histogram-like lines
’black’ Black 24 triangle point-up s steps
’#RRGGBB’ hexadecimal specifica- 25 triangle point-down S another kind of steps
tion of Red, Green,
Blue
(Other names) See colors() for list of ’.’ rectangle of size 0.01 n no plotting
available color names. inch, 1 pixel, or 1 point
(1/72 inch) depending
on device
(See table on next page
for more)
D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 33

R plotting specifications for lty (line-type) argument, for use with plot, matplot, points, and lines:
lty Description
0 blank
1 solid
2 dashed
3 dotted
4 dotdash
5 longdash
6 twodash

24 25 A A b b . # #

18 19 20 21 22 23

12 13 14 15 16 17

6 7 8 9 10 11

0 1 2 3 4 5

R plotting characters, i.e. values for pch argument (from the book R Graphics, by Paul Murrell,
Chapman & Hall / CRC, 2006)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 34

No. Description Matlab R

262 Divide up a figure window subplot(m,n,k) divides the current There are several ways to do this, e.g.
into smaller sub-figures figure window into an m × n ar- using layout or split.screen, al-
ray of subplots, and draws in sub- though they aren’t quite as friendly
plot number k as numbered in “read- as
 Matlab’s. E.g. if you let A =
ing order,” i.e. left-to-right, top-to- 1 1 2
bottom. E.g. subplot(2,3,4) se-  1 1 3 , then layout(A) will
lects the first sub-figure in the second 4 5 6
row of a 2 × 3 array of sub-figures. divide the figure into 6 sub-figures:
You can do more complex things, you can imagine the figure divide into
e.g. subplot(5,5,[1 2 6 7]) se- a 3 × 3 matrix of smaller blocks; sub-
lects the first two subplots in the first figure 1 will take up the upper-left
row, and first two subplots in the 2 × 2 portion, and sub-figures 2–6 will
second row, i.e. gives you a bigger take up smaller portions, according to
subplot within a 5 × 5 array of sub- the positions of those numbers in the
plots. (If you that command followed matrix A. Consecutive plotting com-
by e.g. subplot(5,5,3) you’ll see mands will draw into successive sub-
what’s meant by that.) figures; there doesn’t seem to be a way
to explicitly specify which sub-figure
to draw into next.
To use split.screen, you can
do e.g. split.screen(c(2,1)) to
split into a 2 × 1 matrix of sub-
figures (numbered 1 and 2). Then
split.screen(c(1,3),2) splits sub-
figure 2 into a 1 × 3 matrix of smaller
sub-figures (numbered 3, 4, and 5).
screen(4) will then select sub-figure
number 4, and subsequent plotting
commands will draw into it.
A third way to accomplish this is
via the commands par(mfrow=) or
par(mfcol=) to split the figure win-
dow, and par(mfg=) to select which
sub-figure to draw into.
Note that the above methods are all
incompatible with each other.
263 Force graphics windows to drawnow (Matlab normally only R automatically updates graphics
update updates figure windows when a windows even before functions/scripts
script/function finishes and returns finish executing, so it’s not neces-
control to the Matlab prompt, or sary to explictly request it. But note
under a couple of other circum- that some graphics functions (partic-
stances. This forces it to update ularly those in the lattice package)
figure windows to reflect any recent don’t display their results when called
plotting commands.) from scripts or functions; e.g. rather
than levelplot(...) you need to do
print(levelplot(...)). Such func-
tions will automatically display their
plots when called interactively from
the command prompt.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 35

7.2 Printing/saving graphics

No. Description Matlab R
264 To print/save to a PDF file print -dpdf fname saves the con- First do pdf(’fname.pdf’). Then,
named fname.pdf tents of currently active figure win- do various plotting commands
dow to make your image, as if you
were plotting in a window. Fi-
nally, do dev.off() to close/save
the PDF file. To print the con-
tents of the active figure win-
dow, do dev.copy(device=pdf,
file=’fname.pdf’); dev.off().
(But this will not work if you’ve
turned off the display list via
dev.control(displaylist=
’inhibit’).)
265 To print/save to a PostScript print -dps fname for black & postscript(’fname.eps’), followed
file fname.ps or fname.eps white PostScript; print -dpsc by your plotting commands, fol-
fname for color PostScript; print lowed by dev.off() to close/save
-deps fname for black & white the file. Note: you may want to
Encapsulated PostScript; print use postscript(’fname.eps’,
-depsc fname for color Encapsu- horizontal=FALSE) to save your fig-
lated PostScript. The first two save ure in portrait mode rather than the
to fname.ps, while the latter two default landscape mode. To print the
save to fname.eps. contents of the active figure window,
do dev.copy(device=postscript,
file=’fname.eps’); dev.off().
(But this will not work if you’ve
turned off the display list via
dev.control(displaylist=
’inhibit’).) You can also include
the horizontal=FALSE argument
with dev.copy().
266 To print/save to a JPEG file print -djpeg90 fname jpeg(’fname.jpg’,quality=90),
fname.jpg with jpeg qual- followed by your plotting commands,
ity = 90 (higher quality looks followed by dev.off() to close/save
better but makes the file the file.
larger)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 36

7.3 Animating cellular automata / lattice simulations

No. Description Matlab R
267 To display images of cellu- Repeatedly use either pcolor or If you simply call image repeatedly,
lar automata or other lattice image to display the data. Don’t there is a great deal of flicker-
simulations while running in forget to call drawnow as well, oth- ing/flashing. To avoid this, after
real time erwise the figure window will not be drawing the image for the first time
updated with each image. using e.g. image(A), from then
on only use image(A,add=TRUE),
which avoids redrawing the entire
image (and the associated flicker).
However, this will soon consume a
great deal of memory, as all drawn
images are saved in the image buffer.
There are two solutions to that
problem: (1) every k time steps,
leave off the “add=TRUE” argument
to flush the image buffer (and get
occasional flickering), where you
choose k to balance the flickering
vs. memory-usage tradeoff; or
(2) after drawing the first image,
do dev.control(displaylist=
’inhibit’) to prohibit retaining the
data. However, the latter solution
means that after the simulation is
done, the figure window will not be
redrawn if it is resized, or temporarily
obscured by another window. (A
call to dev.control(displaylist=
’enable’) and then one final
image(A) at the end of the sim-
ulation will re-enable re-drawing
after resizing or obscuring, without
consuming extra memory.)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 37

8 Working with files

No. Description Matlab R
268 Create a folder (also known mkdir dirname dir.create(’dirname’)
as a “directory”)
269 Set/change working directory cd dirname setwd(’dirname’)
270 See list of files in current dir dir()
working directory
271 Run commands in file ‘foo.m’ foo source(’foo.R’)
or ‘foo.R’ respectively
272 Read data from text file A=load(’data.txt’) or A=as.matrix(read.table(
“data.txt” into matrix A A=importdata(’data.txt’) Note ’data.txt’)) This will ignore
that both routines will ignore com- comments (anything on a line
ments (anything on a line following following a “#” character). To ig-
a “%” character) nore comments indicated by “%”,
do A=as.matrix(read.table(
’data.txt’, comment.char=’%’))
273 Write data from matrix A save data.txt A -ascii write(A, file=’data.txt’,
into text file “data.txt” ncolumn=dim(A)[2])
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 38

9 Miscellaneous
9.1 Variables
No. Description Matlab R
274 Assigning to variables x = 5 x <- 5 or x = 5 Note: for compati-
bility with S-plus, many people prefer
the first form.
275 From within a function, as- assignin(’base’, ’y’, 7) y <<- 7
sign a value to variable y
in the base environment (i.e.
the command prompt envi-
ronment)
276 From within a function, ac- evalin(’base’, ’y’) get(’y’, envir=globalenv())
cess the value of variable y Though note that inside a function,
in the base environment (i.e. if there isn’t a local variable y, then
the command prompt envi- just the expression y will look for one
ronment) in the base environment, but if there
is a local y then that one will be used
instead.
277 Short list of defined variables who ls()
278 Long list of defined variables whos ls.str()
279 See detailed info about the whos ab str(ab)
variable ab
280 See detailed info about all whos *ab* ls.str(pattern=’ab’)
variables with “ab” in their
name
281 Open graphical data editor, openvar(A), or double-click on the fix(A)
to edit the value of variable variable in the Workspace pane (if
A (useful for editing values in it’s being displayed) of your Mat-
a matrix, though it works for labdesktop
non-matrix variables as well)
282 Clear one variable clear x rm(x)
283 Clear two variables clear x y rm(x,y)
284 Clear all variables clear all rm(list=ls())
285 See what type of object x is class(x) class(x)
286 (Variable names) Variable names must begin with a Variable names may contain letters,
letter, but after that they may con- digits, the period, and the underscore
tain any combination of letters, dig- character. They cannot begin with a
its, and the underscore character. digit or underscore, or with a period
Names are case-sensitive. followed by a digit. Names are case-
sensitive.
287 Result of last command ans contains the result of the last .Last.value contains the result of
command which did not assign its the last command, whether or not its
value to a variable. E.g. after 2+5; value was assigned to a variable. E.g.
x=3, then ans will contain 7. after 2+5; x=3, then .Last.value will
contain 3.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 39

9.2 Strings and Misc.

No. Description Matlab R
288 Line continuation If you want to break up a Matlab In R, you can spread commands out
command over more than one line, over multiple lines, and nothing ex-
end all but the last line with three tra is necessary. R will continue read-
periods: “...”. E.g.: ing input until the command is com-
x = 3 + ... plete. However, this only works when
4 the syntax makes it clear that the first
or line was not complete. E.g.:
x = 3 ... x = 3 +
+ 4 4
works, but
x = 3
+ 4
does not treat the second line as a con-
tinuation of the first.
289 Controlling formatting of format short g and options(digits=6) tells R you’d like
output format long g are handy; see to use 6 digits of precision in values it
help format displays (it is only a suggestion, not
strictly followed)
290 Exit the program quit or exit q() or quit()
291 Comments % this is a comment # this is a comment
292 Display a string disp(’hi there’) or to print(’hi there’)
omit trailing newline use
fprintf(’hi there’)
293 Display a string containing disp(’It’’s nice’) or print(’It\’s nice’) or
single quotes to omit trailing newline print("It’s nice")
fprintf(’It’’s nice’)
294 Give prompt and read numer- x = input(’Enter data:’) print(’Enter data:’); x=scan()
ical input from user But note: if in a script and you use
the Edit → Execute menu item to
run it, the selected text after the
scan statement will be used as source
for the input, rather than keyboard.
295 Give prompt and read char- x = input(’Enter string:’,’s’) x = readline(’Enter string:’)
acter (string) input from user
296 Concatenate strings [’two hal’ ’ves’] paste(’two hal’, ’ves’, sep=’’)
297 Concatenate strings stored in v={’two ’, ’halves’}; v=c(’two ’, ’halves’);
a vector strcat(v{:}) But note that paste(v, collapse=’’)
this drops trailing spaces on
strings. To avoid that, instead do
strcat([v{:}])
298 Extract substring of a string text1=’hi there’; text1=’hi there’;
text2=text(2:6) text2=substr(text1,2,6)
299 Determine whether elements x = {’a’, ’aa’, ’bc’, ’c’}; y x = c(’a’, ’aa’, ’bc’, ’c’); y
of a vector are in a set, and = {’da’, ’a’, ’bc’, ’a’, ’bc’, = c(’da’, ’a’, ’bc’, ’a’, ’bc’,
give positions of correspond- ’aa’}; [tf, loc]=ismember(x,y) ’aa’); loc=match(x,y) Then loc
ing elements in the set. Then loc contains the locations of contains the locations of first oc-
last occurrences of elements of x curences of elements of x in the set
in the set y, and 0 for unmatched y, and NA for unmatched elements.
elements.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 40

No. Description Matlab R

300 Convert number to string num2str(x) as.character(x)
301 Use sprintf to create a
formatted string. Use %d for x=2; y=3.5; x=2; y=3.5
integers (“d” stands for “dec- s=sprintf(’x is %d, y=%g’, ... s=sprintf(’x is %d, y is %g’,
imal”, i.e. base 10), %f for x, y) x, y)
floating-point numbers, %e
for scientific-notation floating
point, %g to automatically
choose %e or %f based on
the value. You can spec-
ify field-widths/precisions,
e.g. %5d for integers with
padding to 5 spaces, or %.7f
for floating-point with 7
digits of precision. There are
many other options too; see
the docs.
302 Machine epsilon ǫmach , i.e. eps (See help eps for various other .Machine$double.eps
difference between 1 and the things eps can give.)
next largest double-precision
floating-point number
303 Pause for x seconds pause(x) Sys.sleep(x)
304 Wait for user to press any key pause Don’t know of a way to do this in R,
but scan(quiet=TRUE) will wait until
the user presses the Enter key
305 Measure CPU time used to t1=cputime; ...commands... ; t1=proc.time(); ...commands...
do some commands cputime-t1 ; (proc.time()-t1)[1]
306 Measure elapsed (“wall- tic; ...commands... ; toc or t1=proc.time(); ...commands...
clock”) time used to do some t1=clock; ...commands... ; ; (proc.time()-t1)[3]
commands etime(clock,t1)
307 Print an error message an in- error(’Problem!’) stop(’Problem!’)
terrupt execution
308 Print a warning message warning(’Smaller problem!’) warning(’Smaller problem!’)
309 Putting multiple statements Separate statements by commas or Separate statements by semicolons.
on one line semicolons. A semicolon at the end
of a statement suppresses display of
the results (also useful even with just
a single statement on a line), while a
comma does not.
310 Evaluate contents of a string eval(s) eval(parse(text=s))
s as command(s).
311 Get a command prompt for Insert the command keyboard in Insert the command browser() in
debugging, while executing a your file. Note that your prompt will your file. Note that your prompt will
script or function. While at change to K>>. When you are done change to Browse[1]>. When you are
that prompt, you can type ex- debugging and want to continue ex- done debugging and want to continue
pressions to see the values of ecuting the file, type return. executing the file, either type c or just
variables, etc. press return (i.e. enter a blank line).
Note, if you type n, you enter the step
debugger.
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 41

No. Description Matlab R

312 Show where a command is which sqrt shows you where the file R does not execute commands directly
defining the sqrt function is (but from files, so there is no equivalent
note that many basic functions are command.
“built in,” so the Matlab func-
tion file is really just a stub con-
taining documentation). This is use-
ful if a command is doing something
strange, e.g. sqrt isn’t working. If
you’ve accidentally defined a variable
called sqrt, then which sqrt will
tell you, so you can clear sqrt to
erase it so that you can go back to
using the function sqrt.
313 Query/set the search path. path displays the current search path R does not use a search path to look
(the list of places Matlab searches for files.
for commands you enter). To add a
directory ~/foo to the beginning of
the search path, do

addpath ~/foo -begin

or to add it to the end of the path,

do addpath ~/foo -end (Note: you
should generally add the full path
of a directory, i.e. in Linux or Mac
OS-X something like ~/foo as above
or of the form /usr/local/lib/foo,
while under Windows it would be
something like C:/foo)
314 Startup sequence If a file startup.m exists in the If a file .Rprofile exists in the cur-
startup directory for Matlab, its rent directory or the user’s home di-
contents are executed. (See the rectory (in that order), its contents
Matlab docs for how to change the are sourced; saved data from the file
startup directory.) .RData (if it exists) are then loaded.
If a function .First() has been de-
fined, it is then called (so the obvious
place to define this function is in your
.Rprofile file).
315 Shutdown sequence Upon typing quit or exit, Matlab Upon typing q() or quit(), R will call
will run the script finish.m if present the function .Last() if it has been de-
somewhere in the search path. fined (one obvious place to define it
would be in the .Rprofile file)
 D. Hiebeler, Matlab / R Reference 42

No. Description Matlab R

316 Install and load a package. Matlab does not have packages. It To install e.g. the deSolve pack-
has toolboxes, which you can pur- age, you can use the command
chase and install. “Contributed” install.packages(’deSolve’).
code (written by end users) can sim- You then need to load the package
ply be downloaded and put in a di- in order to use it, via the command
rectory which you then add to Mat- library(’deSolve’). When running
lab’s path (see item 313 for how to R again later you’ll need to load the
add things to Matlab’s path). package again to use it, but you
should not need to re-install it. Note
that the lattice package is typically
included with binary distributions of
R, so it only needs to be loaded, not
installed.

10 Spatial Modeling
No. Description Matlab R
317 Take an L×L matrix A of A = (A | (rand(L) < p))*1; A = (A | (matrix(runif(L^2),L)
0s and 1s, and “seed” frac- < p))*1
tion p of the 0s (turn them
into 1s), not changing entries
which are already 1.
318 Take an L × L matrix A of 0s A = (A & (rand(L) < 1-p))*1; A = (A & (matrix(runif(L^2),L)
and 1s, and “kill” fraction p < 1-p))*1
of the 1s (turn them into 0s),
not changing the rest of the
entries
319 Do “wraparound” on a coor- mod(newx-1,L)+1 Note: for porta- ((newx-1) %% L) + 1 Note: for
dinate newx that you’ve al- bility with other languages such as portability with other languages such
ready calculated. You can C which handle MOD of negative as C which handle MOD of nega-
replace newx with x+dx if values differently, you may want to tive values differently, you may want
you want to do wraparound get in the habit of instead doing to get in the habit of instead doing
on an offset x coordinate. mod(newx-1+L,L)+1 ((newx-1+L)%%L) + 1
320 Randomly initialize a portion dx=ix2-ix1+1; dy=iy2-iy1+1; dx=ix2-ix1+1; dy=iy2-iy1+1;
of an array: set fraction p of A(iy1:iy2,ix1:ix2) = ... A[iy1:iy2,ix1:ix2] =
sites in rows iy1 through iy2 (rand(dy,dx) < p0)*1; (matrix(runif(dy*dx),dy) <
and columns ix1 through ix2 p0)*1
equal to 1 (and set the rest of
the sites in that block equal
to zero). Note: this assume
iy1 < iy2 and ix1 < ix2.
INDEX OF MATLAB COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 43

Index of MATLAB commands and concepts

’, 77 class, 285
,, 309 clear, 282–284
.*, 76 clf, 255
..., 288 clock, 306
./, 82 close, 228
.^, 86 colon, see :
/, 81 colorbar, 259
:, 12–14 colormap
;, 309 building your own, 261
=, 274 colormap, 260, 261
[, 6–8 column vector, 7
%, 291 comments, 291
&, 175, 176 complex numbers, 69–74
^, 50, 84, 85 cond, 96–98
\, 78, 83 conj, 72
{ 45 continue, 180
contour, 243
abs, 51, 70 conv, 154
acos, 56 corr, 110–115
acosh, 58 cos, 55
addpath, 313 cosh, 57
all, 177 cov, 108, 109
angle, 71 cputime, 305
annotation, 252, 253 csape, 167, 169, 170
ans, 287 cubic splines, 168, 169
any, 178 natural, 167
arrows in plots, 252, 253 not-a-knot, 171
asin, 56 periodic, 170
asinh, 58 cumprod, 124
assignin, 275 cumsum, 120–123
atan, 56 cumulative distribution functions
atanh, 58 binomial, 218
average, see mean continuous uniform on interval (a, b), 222
axis, 244 discrete uniform from 1..n, 223
exponential, 220
bar, 233, 235, 236
normal, 221
binocdf, 218
Poisson, 219
binopdf, 211
binornd, 202 debugging, 311
boolean tests diag, 22, 23
scalar, 175 diff, 126
vector, 176–178 differential equations, see ode45
break, 180 dir, 270
disp, 292, 293
cd, 269
doc, 4
ceil, 62
drawnow, 263, 267
cell, 44
cell arrays, 44 echelon form, see matrix
extracting elements of, 45 eig, 88
cellular automata animation, 267
chol, 92
INDEX OF MATLAB COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 44

element-by-element matrix operations, see ma- gcf, 226

trix get, 227
else, 174 Greek letters
elseif, 174 in plot labels, 247
end, 36 grid, 249
eps, 302
erf, 64 help, 1–3
erfc, 65 helpbrowser, 4
erfcinv, 67 helpdesk, 4
erfinv, 66 hilb, 42
error, 307 hist, 152, 153, 234, 235
errorbar, 237, 238 hold, 255
etime, 306
eval, 310 identity, see matrix
evalin, 276 if, 173–175
exit, 290 imag, 74
exp, 52 image, 258, 267
expcdf, 220 imagesc, 258
expm, 119 importdata, 272
exppdf, 213 ind2sub, 32
exprnd, 204 indexing
eye, 21 matrix, 10
with a single index, 11
figure, 224, 225 vector, 9
file input, 294, 295
reading data from, 273 inv, 80
running commands in, 271 inverse, see matrix
text ismember, 299
reading data from, 272
saving data to, 273 keyboard, 311
find, 149–151
legend, 254
finish.m, 315
length, 139, 141
floor, 61
linspace, 15
fminbnd, 157, 158
load, 272, 273
fminsearch, 159, 160
log, 53
font size in plots, 248
log10, 54
for, 172
log2, 54
format, 289
loglog, 232
fplot, 257
logspace, 16
fprintf, 292, 293
lookfor, 5
function
lu, 89
multi-variable
minimization, 159 matrix, 8
minimization over first parameter only, 158 boolean operations on, 150, 151
minimization over only some parameters, changing shape of, 39
160 Cholesky factorization, 92
single-variable condition number, 96–98
minimization, 157 containing all indentical entries, 20
user-written, 182 containing all zeros, 19
returning multiple values, 183 converting row, column to single index, 33
fzero, 156 converting single-index to row, column, 32
cumulative sums of all elements of, 123
gca, 248
cumulative sums of columns, 121
INDEX OF MATLAB COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 45

cumulative sums of rows, 122 normcdf, 221

diagonal, 22 normpdf, 214
echelon form, 79 normrnd, 208
eigenvalues and eigenvectors of, 88 num2str, 300
equation numel, 140
solving, 78
exponential of, 119 ode45, 184–186
extracting a column of, 27 ones, 18, 20
extracting a rectangular piece of, 30 openvar, 281
extracting a row of, 28 optimization, 157–160
extracting specified rows and columns of, 31
“gluing” together, 24, 25 path, 313
identity, 21 pause, 303, 304
inverse, 80 pcolor, 243, 258, 267
lower-triangular portion of, 40 perform some commands with probability p, 196
LU factorization, 89 permutation of integers 1..n, 197
minimum of values of, 129 plot, 229–231, 256
minimum value of each column of, 130 Greek letters in axis labels, 247
minimum value of each row of, 131 plot3, 240
modifying elements given lists of rows and poisscdf, 219
columns, 34 poisspdf, 212
multiplication, 75 poissrnd, 203
element-by-element, 76 polar, 239
N -dimensional, 43 polyfit, 163–165
norm, 95 polynomial
powers of, 85 least-squares fitted, 164–166
QR factorization, 93 multiplication, 154
rank, 87 roots of, 155
re-shaping its elements into a vector, 29 ppval, 167, 169, 170
Schur decomposition, 91 print, 264–266
singular value decomposition, 90 probability density functions
size of, 136–138, 140, 141 binomial, 211
sum continuous uniform on interval (a, b), 215
of all elements, 116 discrete uniform from 1..n, 216
of columns of, 117 exponential, 213
of rows of, 118 multinomial, 217
transpose, 77 normal, 214
upper-triangular portion of, 41 Poisson, 212
max, see min
qr, 93
mean, 99–101
quad, 161
mesh, 243
quit, 290
meshgrid, 110, 242
min, 128–131, 133–135 rand, 187–195, 201
mind, 132 random values
mkdir, 268 Bernoulli, 193
mnpdf, 217 binomial, 202
mnrnd, 209, 210 continuous uniform distribution on interval
mod, 59, 319 (a, b), 190, 207
modulo arithmetic, 59, 319 continuous uniform distribution on interval
multiple statements on one line, 309 (0,1), 187–189
discrete uniform distribution from a..b, 195
nchoosek, 68
discrete uniform distribution from 1..k, 192,
norm, 94, 95
205, 206
INDEX OF MATLAB COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 46

discrete uniform distribution, 191 subplot, 262

exponential, 204 sum, 116–118, 176
k unique values sampled from integers 1..n, surf, 241, 242
198 surfc, 243
multinomial, 209, 210 surfl, 243
normal, 208 svd, 90
Poisson, 203 switch, 181
setting the seed, 201
randperm, 197, 198 tan, 55
randsample, 198–200 tanh, 57
rank, 87 text, 250, 251
rcond, 96 tic, 306
real, 73 title, 245
reshape, 39, 43 toc, 306
roots transpose, see matrix
of general single-variable function, 156 trapz, 162
polynomial, 155 tril, 40
roots, 155 triu, 41
round, 60
row vector, 6 unidcdf, 223
rref, 79 unidpdf, 216
unidrnd, 205, 206
sampling values from a vector, 199, 200 unifcdf, 222
save, 273 unifpdf, 215
schur, 91 unifrnd, 207
semilogx, 232 unique, 152, 235
semilogy, 232
set, 248 var, 105–107
shading, 258 variables
sign, 63 assigning, 274
sin, 55 assigning in base environment from func-
sinh, 57 tion, 275
size, 136–138 evaluating from base environment within func-
slice, 243 tion, 276
sort, 142, 143, 198 names, 286
sortrows, 144–147 variance, see var
spline, 171 vector
splines, see cubic splines boolean operations on, 148, 149
sprintf, 301 containing all indentical entries, 18
sqrt, 49 containing all zeros, 17
stairs, 239 counts of binned values in, 153
standard deviation, see std counts of discrete values in, 152
startup.m, 314 cumulative sum of elements of, 120
std, 102–104 differences between consecutive elements of,
stem, 239 126
stop, 307 minimum of values of, 128
strcat, 297 norm, 94
string position of first occurance of minimum value
concatenation, 296 in, 135
converting number to, 300 reversing order of elements in, 26
substrings, 298 size of, 139
struct, 47 sum of all elements, 116
sub2ind, 33, 34 truncating, 35
INDEX OF MATLAB COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 47
warning, 308
waterfall, 243
which, 312
while, 179
who, 277
whos, 278–280

xlabel, 246–248

ylabel, 246, 247

zeros, 17, 19
INDEX OF R COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 48

Index of R commands and concepts

*, 84 for image, 260

/, 82 colSums, 117
:, 12, 13 column vector, 7
;, 309 comments, 291
<-, 274 complex numbers, 69–74
<<-, 275 Conj, 72
=, 274 contour, 243
?, 1, 2 convolve, 154
[[, 45 cor, 111–115
#, 291 cos, 55
%%, 59, 319 cosh, 57
&, 175, 176 cov, 108–110
^, 50, 86 cubic splines, 168, 169, 171
natural, 167
abs, 51, 70 periodic, 170
acos, 56 cummax, 125
acosh, 58 cummin, 125
all, 177 cumprod, 124
any, 178 cumsum, 120–123
apply, 104, 106, 107, 130, 131 cumulative distribution functions
Arg, 71 binomial, 218
array, 43 continuous uniform on interval (a, b), 222
arrows, 252, 253 discrete uniform from 1..n, 223
as.character, 300 exponential, 220
as.numeric, 152 normal, 221
asin, 56 Poisson, 219
asinh, 58 curve, 257
atan, 56
atanh, 58 data.frame, 47
average, see mean dbinom, 211
debugging, 311
barplot, 233, 235 dev.control, 264, 265, 267
boolean tests dev.copy, 264, 265
scalar, 175 dev.cur(), 226
vector, 176–178 dev.list, 227
break, 180 dev.new, 224
browser, 311 dev.off, 228, 264–266
c, 6, 7 dev.set, 225
cbind, 24, 34 dexp, 213
ceiling, 62 diag, 21–23
cellular automata animation, 267 diff, 126
chol, 92 differential equations, see lsoda
choose, 68 dim, 39, 138, 141
class, 285 dir, 270
cloud, 240 dir.create, 268
coef, 163, 164, 166 dmultinom, 217
colMeans, 100 dnorm, 214
colon, see : dpois, 212
colormap dunif, 215
building your own, 261
INDEX OF R COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 49
echelon form, see matrix image, 258, 267
eig, 88 indexing
element-by-element matrix operations, see ma- matrix, 10
trix with a single index, 11
else, 174 vector, 9
errbar, 237, 238 install.packages, 316
eval, 310 integrate, 161
exp, 52 inverse, see matrix
expand, 89
expand.grid, 243 jpeg, 266
expm, 119
kappa, 97
file
reading data from, 273 .Last, 315
running commands in, 271 .Last.value, 287
text lattice package, 243, 259, 263, 316
reading data from, 272 layout, 262
saving data to, 273 legend, 254
filled.contour, 259 length, 35, 36, 139, 140
.First, 314 levelplot, 259, 263
fix, 281 library, 3, 316
floor, 61 lines, 255
font size in plots, 248 lists, 44
for, 172 extracting elements of, 45
function lm, 163, 164, 166
multi-variable log, 53
minimization, 159 log10, 54
minimization over first parameter only, 158 log2, 54
minimization over only some parameters, lower.tri, 41
160 ls, 277
single-variable ls.str, 278, 280
minimization, 157 lsoda, 184–186
user-written, 182
.Machine$double.eps, 302
returning multiple values, 183
match, 299
get, 276 matplot, 256
globalenv, 276 matrix, 8
graphics boolean operations on, 150, 151
not being displayed from scripts/functions, changing shape of, 39
263 Cholesky factorization, 92
Greek letters condition number, 96–98
in plot labels, 247 containing all indentical entries, 20
grid, 249 containing all zeros, 19
converting row, column to single index, 33
help, 1, 2 converting single-index to row, column, 32
help.search, 5 cumulative sums of all elements of, 123
help.start, 4 cumulative sums of columns, 121
Hilbert, 42 cumulative sums of rows, 122
hist, 153, 233, 234, 236 diagonal, 22
echelon form, 79
identity, see matrix eigenvalues and eigenvectors of, 88
if, 173–175 equation
ifelse, 127 solving, 78
Im, 74 exponential of, 119
INDEX OF R COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 50
extracting a column of, 27 installing, 316
extracting a rectangular piece of, 30 loading, 316
extracting a row of, 28 par, 248
extracting specified rows and columns of, 31 par
“gluing” together, 24, 25 mfcol=, 262
identity, 21 mfrow=, 262
inverse, 80 parse, 310
lower-triangular portion of, 40 paste, 296, 297
LU factorization, 89 pbinom, 218
minimum of values of, 129 pdf, 248, 264
minimum value of each column of, 130 perform some commands with probability p, 196
minimum value of each row of, 131 permutation of integers 1..n, 197
modifying elements given lists of rows and persp, 241, 242
columns, 34 pexp, 220
multiplication, 75 pie, 239
element-by-element, 76 plot, 229–232
N -dimensional, 43 Greek letters in axis labels, 247
norm, 95 main=, 245
powers of, 85 sub=, 245
QR factorization, 93 xlab=, 246, 247
rank, 87 xlim=, 244
re-shaping its elements into a vector, 29 ylab=, 246, 247
Schur decomposition, 91 ylim=, 244
singular value decomposition, 90 pmin, 132, 133
size of, 136–138, 140, 141 pnorm, 64, 65, 221
sum points, 255
of all elements, 116 polynomial
of columns of, 117 least-squares fitted, 164–166
of rows of, 118 multiplication, 154
transpose, 77 roots of, 155
upper-triangular portion of, 41 polyreg, 165
matrix, 8, 19, 20 polyroot, 155
max, see min postscript, 265
mean, 99 ppois, 219
min, 128–131, 134 print, 263, 292, 293
Mod, 70 probability density functions
modulo arithmetic, 59, 319 binomial, 211
multiple statements on one line, 309 continuous uniform on interval (a, b), 215
discrete uniform from 1..n, 216
names, 46, 152 exponential, 213
ncol, 137 multinomial, 217
next, 180 normal, 214
norm, 94, 95 Poisson, 212
nrow, 136 proc.time, 305, 306
punif, 222
optim, 159, 160
optimization, 157–160 q, 290
optimize, 157, 158 qnorm, 66, 67
options qr, 87, 93
digits=, 289 quartz, 224
order, 144–147 quit, 290
outer, 242
rand, 194
packages
INDEX OF R COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 51
random values sin, 55
Bernoulli, 193 sinh, 57
binomial, 202 solve, 78, 80, 81, 83
continuous uniform distribution on interval sort, 142, 143
(a, b), 190, 207 source, 271
continuous uniform distribution on interval spline, 167, 168, 170
(0,1), 187, 189 splines, see cubic splines
continuous uniform distribution on inteval split.screen, 262
(0,1), 188 sprintf, 301
discrete uniform distribution from a..b, 195 sqrt, 49
discrete uniform distribution from 1..k, 192, standard deviation, see sd
205, 206 str, 279
discrete uniform distribution, 191 string
exponential, 204 concatenation, 296
k unique values sampled from integers 1..n, converting number to, 300
198 substrings, 298
multinomial, 209, 210 substr, 298
normal, 208 sum, 116, 118, 176
Poisson, 203 svd, 90
setting the seed, 201 switch, 181
rbind, 25 symbols, 243
rbinom, 202 Sys.sleep, 303
rcond, 96, 98
.RData, 314 t, 77
Re, 73 table, 152, 235
read.table, 272, 273 tan, 55
readline, 295 tanh, 57
rep, 17, 18 text, 250, 251
rev, 26 title, 245, 246
rexp, 204 transpose, see matrix
rgb, 261
rm, 282–284 uniroot, 156
rmultinom, 209, 210 upper.tri, 40
rnorm, 208
var, 105–107, 109
roots
variables
of general single-variable function, 156
assigning, 274
polynomial, 155
assigning in base environment from func-
round, 60
tion, 275
row vector, 6
evaluating from base environment within func-
rowMeans, 101
tion, 276
rpois, 203
names, 286
.Rprofile, 314
variance, see var
runif, 187–193, 195, 207
vector
sample, 197–200, 205, 206 boolean operations on, 148, 149
sampling values from a vector, 199, 200 containing all indentical entries, 18
scan, 294, 304 containing all zeros, 17
Schur, 91 counts of binned values in, 153
sd, 102–104 counts of discrete values in, 152
seq, 14–16 cumulative sum of elements of, 120
set.seed, 201 differences between consecutive elements of,
setwd, 269 126
sign, 63 minimum of values of, 128
norm, 94
INDEX OF R COMMANDS AND CONCEPTS 52
position of first occurance of minimum value
in, 135
reversing order of elements in, 26
size of, 139
sum of all elements, 116
truncating, 35
vector, 44

warning, 308
which, 149–151
which.max, see which.min
which.min, 135
while, 179
windows, 224
wireframe, 243
write, 273

x11, 224