ID EN
Vector & List

Colon

R Base 3.6.2

Generate regular sequences.

Syntax

R
from:to
   a:b

Arguments

Parameter Description
from starting value of sequence.
to (maximal) end value of the sequence.
a, b factors of the same length.

Return Value

For numeric arguments, a numeric vector. This will be of type integer if from is integer-valued and the result is representable in the R integer type, otherwise of type "double" (aka mode "numeric"). For factors, an unordered factor with levels labelled as la:lb and ordered lexicographically (that is, lb varies fastest).

Details

The binary operator : has two meanings: for factors a:b is equivalent to interaction(a, b) (but the levels are ordered and labelled differently). For other arguments from:to is equivalent to seq(from, to), and generates a sequence from from to to in steps of 1 or -1. Value to will be included if it differs from from by an integer up to a numeric fuzz of about 1e-7. Non-numeric arguments are coerced internally (hence without dispatching methods) to numeric---complex values will have their imaginary parts discarded with a warning.

Examples

Example
R
# NOT RUN {
1:4
pi:6 # real
6:pi # integer

f1 <- gl(2, 3); f1
f2 <- gl(3, 2); f2
f1:f2 # a factor, the "cross"  f1 x f2
# }

See Also

seq (a generalization of from:to). As an alternative to using : for factors interaction. For : used in the formal representation of an interaction see formula.