Image source: pixabay.com
What is R-Studio?
If you want to know what R-Studio is then first you need to know what is R.
R is a programming language or software environment that is installed in your computer for scientific computing and graphics
R-Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) which integrates with R to perform further functions of R.
Lets learn about R-Studio in detail
R-Studio is a set of integrated tools designed to help you to use R more productively. It was founded in the year 2008.
R-Studio is a code editor with very good features that will make code development easy in R. R-Studio lets R to run in a more user friendly environment.
R-Studio has a help desk and it supports R in a very practical way
R-Studio is free of charge to download in Linux, Windows and Apple IOS devices.
One can use R without R-Studio with any other editor to write the scripts. But R-Studio cannot be used more effectively without R.
Objectives of R-Studio
Help users to be more productive with R programming
Provides a statistical computing environment for the open source software R
Makes the user to analyze the data with R more easily
How to install R
Follow these simple steps to install R in your computer
Download the R installer at http://cran.stat.ucla.edu
Install R by opening the installer
Now it is all set to run R from your local computer
How to install R-Studio
R-Studio download is easy. Follow the below steps
Go to R-Studio download
Click the download R-Studio desktop button
Select the installation file for your computer
Run the installation file
Features of R-Studio
R-Studio is available in open source and commercial editions on the desktop of Windows, Mac and Linux or in a browser connected to R-Studio server or R-Studio server Pro.
The important features of R-Studio are listed below
Code highlighting option that highlights keywords and variables in different colours
Automatic bracket matching
Code completion – you don’t have to type all the commands in full
Smart indentation
Execute R code directly from the source editor
Integrates the tools with R into a single environment
Quick access to function and parameters of functions
Enables easy navigation to files and functions
Integrated R help and documentation
Integrated support for Git and subversions
Supports HTML, PDF, Word documents and slide shows
Manages multiple working directories
Workspace browser and data viewer
Supports interactive graphics with Shiny and ggvis
Interactive debugging function to fix errors and issues quickly
Easy exploration of variables and values
Package development tools
Configuring R-Studio
If your R-Studio does not recognize the R installed in your computer then you can set which R version to use by selecting
Tools à Options à Options Pane à Change
You can change between the 32 bit R installation and 64 bit R installation. The default is 32 bit. You can also choose any specific version of R by choosing the browse option.
In the Options pane you can also modify the behaviour of R in R-Studio.
The default options for R in R-Studio is explained below
Initial working directory – You can set the default working directory which R will use as a startup
Save Option – R-Studio asks whether you want to save the workspace when you quit. You will be provided with options like Ask, Never or Always
Restore option – You can select this check box if you want R-Studio to automatically restore your workspace at startup
History – Select this option if you want R-Studio to save the history when you exit. You can also save the history in a single global file
Duplicate entries – R-Studio automatically removes duplicate entries from your history if you select this option
Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) mirror – Select this option to set the CRAN mirror site that R-Studio uses to install new packages
R-Studio Screen
Once R-Studio starts select
File à New à R Script
You have four main areas
R Scripts and Data view
R Script is where you keep a record of the file.
To start with R Script select File à New à R Script
or
Press Ctrl + Shift + N
The top left corner of the screen has a text editor which allows you to work with source script files. You can enter multiple lines of code and do other tasks on your script.
This code editor works like every other code editor. It is a smart code editor which highlights various elements of your code.
Console
In the bottom left corner of the screen you find the console option. The console in R-Studio is similar to the console in RGui. This is the place where R-Studio interacts with R. Here you can type commands and see the output
Workspace tab
Workspace tab is located in the top right corner of the R-Studio screen. The workspace tab stores any object, value, function or anything you create using R. You can also inspect the variables you created in R session.
History tab
This tab maintains a record of all the previous commands which will be helpful to you while testing and running processes. You can select the whole list or select a particular command and send it to R Script to keep a track of your work
Working directory
Every time you open R-Studio it reaches a default directory. You can change the default to a folder using Tools à Options menu.
The other options are as follows
Files
The files option will help you to search the files and folders on your system
Plots
Plots tab will display the charts and graphs. If there are more than one graph to be displayed then it will display all the graphs as icons. In order to extract the graph, Click on the Export option where you can save the file as an image or in PDF format. This option will be useful to you when you want to share the graph or use it in any other document. You can copy the graph to the clipboard and then paste it directly into your destination document.
This tab also lets you display 3D graphs. You cannot save such graphs but you can take a screenshot of the graph and paste it in your document.
Packages tab
This tab shows the list of all the Add-ons installed in RStudio. Package means self contained set of codes that defines functionality to R. You can also add new Add-ons by clicking on the ‘Install Packages’ icon, then write the name on the add-on in the pop-up menu and click the Install button.
Help tab
This tab will let you browse the built in help system of R.
R-Studio Desktop Open Source
The features of RStudio desktop in Open Source edition are listed below
It is free to download and use
The license required is AGPL v3
Easy Access to RStudio locally
Syntax highlighting
Code completion
Smart indentation
Execute R code directly from the source editor
Manages multiple working directories
Integrated R help and documentation
Special package development tools
It offers support community forums only
R-Studio Desktop Commercial edition
The features of RStudio Desktop commercial license includes all the features of R-Studio Desktop plus the below mentioned features
Offers a commercial license for organizations who are not able to use AGPL software
Gives access to priority support
Supports email
8 hours response during the working hours of business
R-Studio has separate RStudio License agreement
It is not free of cost. It is available for an annual subscription
R-Studio Server Open Source
RStudio Server has the following characteristics
It is accessed through a web browser and is free of cost
Move computation close to the data
Scale, compute and RAM centrally
Supports Community forums only
AGPL v3 is the license required
R-Studio Server Commercial License
It contains all the features of open source plus the following
Administrative tools
Enhanced security and Authentication
Metrics and Monitoring
Enhanced resource management
It is available for a yearly subscription
When RStudio Commercial version is compared with R-Studio open source it has a lot of additional features and advantages.
The administrative tools of R-Studio Server commercial edition includes the following activities
Manage active sessions and resource utilization
Assume control and terminate sessions
Set user limits on system resources
Enhanced Security and authentication includes the following
LDAP, Active directory, Google accounts
Supports Pluggable authentication modules and Kerberos through PAM
Custom authentication through proxied HTTP header
Encrypt traffic using SSL
Metrics and monitoring includes the following
Historical statistics
Audit of server performance and resource utilization
Checks with configurable output
Sends metrics to external systems with Graphite plain text protocol
Advanced Resource Management
Limit resources for users and group
Tailor the version of R
Reserve CPU
Prioritize scheduling
Provision accounts and Mount home directories dynamically
Execute per user profile scripts for database automatically
R-Studio Server Pro
RStudio Server Pro provides security, resource management, metrics and commercial data support services to R.
RStudio helps you to do the following activities
Manage the R resources – Lets multiple users to share the resources. Users can effectively install and configure the R environment
Access R code securely – RStudio Server Pro lets the users to access to the R workspace from any system and from any location
Increase R productivity – RStudio Server Pro helps the team to be more productive with R. It helps to prioritize the resources according to the individuals or groups. Allows the admin to help the individual users when they are in need of any help
Connect the current systems – RStudio Server Pro helps to integrate with IT reports and data management products
Developing packages with R-Studio
RStudio has a variety of tools that supplies codes to many R packages with ease and creates innovative work in many fields. Few of the packages of R are listed below for reference
R markdown – lets you insert R code into a markdown document. It helps in automated reporting
Shiny – Easily makes interactive web apps with R
knitr – It is a report generating package that combines R with Tex, Markdown or HTML
ggplot2 – This is a famous package of R which helps you to make beautiful graphics
tidyr – These are tools to change the layout of your data sets. Tidy data is data that is easy to work with in R.
readr – Makes it easy to read the data in the table format
lubridate – This package makes it easier to work with dates and times
devtools – Contains a set of tools that could convert your code into an R package
magrittr – Offers a process for chaining commands with new forward pipe operator
packrat – It is a management tool which makes your project more transferable and reproducible
stringr – This package offers tools for learning about regular expressions and character strings
dplyr – It offers quick data manipulation and offers shortcuts for sub-setting, summarizing and joining data sets.
haven – Allows you to load foreign data formats into R
Leaflet – It is a famous Java Script library for interactive maps
DT – It provides an R interface to the Java Script library Data Tables where data is displayed as tables in HTML pages with all the major features of the tables.
roxygen2 – Documentation being the important part of good code, this offers a quick and easy way to document your R packages. It converts inline code comments into documentation pages
testthat – Offers a easy way to write unit tests for your code projects. It makes the testing activity more interesting.
htmlwidgets – Offers a fast way to build Java Script based visualizations with R
The post Getting Started with R-Studio - For Dummies appeared first on eduCBA.