R Programming Language - Introduction - GeeksforGeeks (2025)

Table of Contents

Why Choose R Programming? Key Features of R Example Program in R Applications of R Advantages of R Programming Disadvantages of R Programming Similar Reads Introduction Fundamentals of R Variables Input/Output Control Flow Functions Data Structures Object Oriented Programming Error Handling

Skip to content

• Tutorials
  • Python
  • Java
  • Interview Corner
  • Programming Languages
  • Web Development
  • CS Subjects
  • DevOps And Linux
  • School Learning
  • Practice Coding Problems
• Courses
  • DSA to Development
  • Get IBM Certification
  • Newly Launched!
    • Master Django Framework
    • Become AWS Certified
  • For Working Professionals
    • Data Science Training Program
    • JAVA Backend Development (Live)
    • DevOps Engineering (LIVE)
  • For Students
    • Placement Preparation Course
    • Data Science (Live)
    • Master Competitive Programming (Live)
  • Full Stack Development
  • Data Science Program
  • All Courses

• Data Visualization
• Statistics in R
• Machine Learning in R
• Data Science in R
• Packages in R
• Data Types
• String
• Array
• Vector
• Lists
• Matrices
• Oops in R

Open In App

Next Article:Interesting Facts about R Programming Language

Last Updated : 05 Jun, 2025

Comments

Improve

Suggest changes

Like Article

Like

Report

R is a programming language and software environment that has become the first choice for statistical computing and data analysis. Developed in the early 1990s by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, R was built to simplify complex data manipulation and create clear, customizable visualizations. Over time, it has gained popularity among statisticians, data scientists and researchers because of its capabilities and the vast array of packages available.

As data-driven decision-making has grown, R has established itself as an important tool in various industries, including finance and healthcare, due to its ability to handle large datasets and perform in-depth statistical analysis.

Why Choose R Programming?

R is a unique language that offers a wide range of features for data analysis, making it an essential tool for professionals in various fields. Here’s why R is preferred:

• Free and Open-Source: R is open to everyone, meaning users can modify, share and distribute their work freely.
• Designed for Data: R is built for data analysis, offering a comprehensive set of tools for statistical computing and graphics.
• Large Package Repository: The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) offers thousands of add-on packages for specialized tasks.
• Cross-Platform Compatibility: R can work on Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.
• Great for Visualization: With packages like ggplot2, R makes it easy to create informative, interactive charts and plots.

Key Features of R

• Cross-Platform Support: R works on multiple operating systems, making it versatile for different environments.
• Interactive Development: R allows users to interactively experiment with data and see the results immediately.
• Data Wrangling: Tools like dplyr and tidyr help simplify data cleaning and transformation.
• Statistical Modeling: R has built-in support for various statistical models like regression, time-series analysis and clustering.
• Reproducible Research: With R Markdown, users can combine code, output and narrative in one document, ensuring their analysis is reproducible.

Example Program in R

To understand how R works, here’s a basic example where we calculate the mean and standard deviation of a dataset:

• We first create a vector data that contains numerical values.
• We use the mean() function to calculate the mean of the dataset.
• The sd() function calculates the standard deviation.

R

data <- c(5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50)mean_data <- mean(data)print(paste("Mean: ", mean_data))std_dev <- sd(data)print(paste("Standard Deviation: ", std_dev))

Output:

[1] "Mean: 27.5"
[1] "Standard Deviation: 15.1382517704875"

Applications of R

R is used in a variety of fields, including:

• Data Science and Machine Learning: R is widely used for data analysis, statistical modeling and machine learning tasks.
• Finance: Financial analysts use R for quantitative modeling and risk analysis.
• Healthcare: In clinical research, R helps analyze medical data and test hypotheses.
• Academia: Researchers and statisticians use R for data analysis and publishing reproducible research.

Advantages of R Programming

• Comprehensive Statistical Tools: R includes many statistical functions and models, making it the ideal choice for data analysis.
• Customizable Visualizations: R’s visualization tools allows for customizations for a simple bar chart or a detailed heatmap.
• Extensive Community Support: R has a large user base and there are countless resources, forums and tutorials available.
• Highly Extendable: The availability of over 15,000 R packages means we can extend R's functionality to suit any project or need.

Disadvantages of R Programming

• Memory Intensive: R can be slow with very large datasets, consuming a lot of memory.
• Limited Support for Error Handling: Unlike some other programming languages, R has less robust error handling features.
• Steeper Learning Curve: Beginners might face challenges with some of R’s complex features and syntax.
• Performance: R’s performance can lag behind languages like Python or C++ when it comes to speed, especially for large-scale operations.

In this article, we’ve seen how R is an tool for data analysis, statistical computing and visualization. Its open-source nature, comprehensive feature set and active community make it an excellent choice for both beginners and seasoned professionals.

Next Article

Interesting Facts about R Programming Language

A

AmiyaRanjanRout

Improve

Article Tags :

• Programming Language
• R Language
• Write From Home
• AI-ML-DS With R

Similar Reads

R Tutorial | Learn R Programming Language R is an interpreted programming language widely used for statistical computing, data analysis and visualization. R language is open-source with large community support. R provides structured approach to data manipulation, along with decent libraries and packages like Dplyr, Ggplot2, shiny, Janitor a 4 min read

Introduction

R Programming Language - IntroductionR is a programming language and software environment that has become the first choice for statistical computing and data analysis. Developed in the early 1990s by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, R was built to simplify complex data manipulation and create clear, customizable visualizations. Over ti 4 min read Interesting Facts about R Programming LanguageR is an open-source programming language that is widely used as a statistical software and data analysis tool. R generally comes with the Command-line interface. R is available across widely used platforms like Windows, Linux, and macOS. Also, the R programming language is the latest cutting-edge to 4 min read R vs PythonR Programming Language and Python are both used extensively for Data Science. Both are very useful and open-source languages as well. For data analysis, statistical computing, and machine learning Both languages are strong tools with sizable communities and huge libraries for data science jobs. A th 5 min read Environments in R ProgrammingThe environment is a virtual space that is triggered when an interpreter of a programming language is launched. Simply, the environment is a collection of all the objects, variables, and functions. Or, Environment can be assumed as a top-level object that contains the set of names/variables associat 3 min read Introduction to R StudioR Studio is an integrated development environment(IDE) for R. IDE is a GUI, where you can write your quotes, see the results and also see the variables that are generated during the course of programming. R Studio is available as both Open source and Commercial software.R Studio is also available a 4 min read How to Install R and R Studio?Navigating the R language installation process and setting up R Studio is crucial for anyone looking to delve into data analysis, statistical computing, and graphical representation with R. In this article, we provide a step-by-step guide on how to install R and configure R Studio on your system. Wh 6 min read Creation and Execution of R File in R StudioR Studio is an integrated development environment(IDE) for R. IDE is a GUI, where you can write your quotes, see the results and also see the variables that are generated during the course of programming. R is available as an Open Source software for Client as well as Server Versions. Creating an R 5 min read Clear the Console and the Environment in R StudioR Studio is an integrated development environment(IDE) for R. IDE is a GUI, where you can write your quotes, see the results and also see the variables that are generated during the course of programming. Clearing the Console We Clear console in R and RStudio, In some cases when you run the codes us 2 min read Hello World in R ProgrammingWhen we start to learn any programming languages we do follow a tradition to begin HelloWorld as our first basic program. Here we are going to learn that tradition. An interesting thing about R programming is that we can get our things done with very little code. Before we start to learn to code, le 2 min read

Fundamentals of R

Variables

Input/Output

Control Flow

Functions

Data Structures

Object Oriented Programming

Error Handling

top_of_element && top_of_screen < bottom_of_element) || (bottom_of_screen > articleRecommendedTop && top_of_screen < articleRecommendedBottom) || (top_of_screen > articleRecommendedBottom)) { if (!isfollowingApiCall) { isfollowingApiCall = true; setTimeout(function(){ if (loginData && loginData.isLoggedIn) { if (loginData.userName !== $('#followAuthor').val()) { is_following(); } else { $('.profileCard-profile-picture').css('background-color', '#E7E7E7'); } } else { $('.follow-btn').removeClass('hideIt'); } }, 3000); } } }); } $(".accordion-header").click(function() { var arrowIcon = $(this).find('.bottom-arrow-icon'); arrowIcon.toggleClass('rotate180'); });});window.isReportArticle = false;function report_article(){ if (!loginData || !loginData.isLoggedIn) { const loginModalButton = $('.login-modal-btn') if (loginModalButton.length) { loginModalButton.click(); } return;} if(!window.isReportArticle){ //to add loader $('.report-loader').addClass('spinner'); jQuery('#report_modal_content').load(gfgSiteUrl+'wp-content/themes/iconic-one/report-modal.php', { PRACTICE_API_URL: practiceAPIURL, PRACTICE_URL:practiceURL },function(responseTxt, statusTxt, xhr){ if(statusTxt == "error"){ alert("Error: " + xhr.status + ": " + xhr.statusText); } }); }else{ window.scrollTo({ top: 0, behavior: 'smooth' }); $("#report_modal_content").show(); }} function closeShareModal() { const shareOption = document.querySelector('[data-gfg-action="share-article"]'); shareOption.classList.remove("hover_share_menu"); let shareModal = document.querySelector(".hover__share-modal-container"); shareModal && shareModal.remove();}function openShareModal() { closeShareModal(); // Remove existing modal if any let shareModal = document.querySelector(".three_dot_dropdown_share"); shareModal.appendChild(Object.assign(document.createElement("div"), { className: "hover__share-modal-container" })); document.querySelector(".hover__share-modal-container").append( Object.assign(document.createElement('div'), { className: "share__modal" }), ); document.querySelector(".share__modal").append(Object.assign(document.createElement('h1'), { className: "share__modal-heading" }, { textContent: "Share to" })); const socialOptions = ["LinkedIn", "WhatsApp","Twitter", "Copy Link"]; socialOptions.forEach((socialOption) => { const socialContainer = Object.assign(document.createElement('div'), { className: "social__container" }); const icon = Object.assign(document.createElement("div"), { className: `share__icon share__${socialOption.split(" ").join("")}-icon` }); const socialText = Object.assign(document.createElement("span"), { className: "share__option-text" }, { textContent: `${socialOption}` }); const shareLink = (socialOption === "Copy Link") ? Object.assign(document.createElement('div'), { role: "button", className: "link-container CopyLink" }) : Object.assign(document.createElement('a'), { className: "link-container" }); if (socialOption === "LinkedIn") { shareLink.setAttribute('href', `https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=${window.location.href}`); shareLink.setAttribute('target', '_blank'); } if (socialOption === "WhatsApp") { shareLink.setAttribute('href', `https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=${window.location.href}`); shareLink.setAttribute('target', "_blank"); } if (socialOption === "Twitter") { shareLink.setAttribute('href', `https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=${window.location.href}`); shareLink.setAttribute('target', "_blank"); } shareLink.append(icon, socialText); socialContainer.append(shareLink); document.querySelector(".share__modal").appendChild(socialContainer); //adding copy url functionality if(socialOption === "Copy Link") { shareLink.addEventListener("click", function() { var tempInput = document.createElement("input"); tempInput.value = window.location.href; document.body.appendChild(tempInput); tempInput.select(); tempInput.setSelectionRange(0, 99999); // For mobile devices document.execCommand('copy'); document.body.removeChild(tempInput); this.querySelector(".share__option-text").textContent = "Copied" }) } }); // document.querySelector(".hover__share-modal-container").addEventListener("mouseover", () => document.querySelector('[data-gfg-action="share-article"]').classList.add("hover_share_menu"));}function toggleLikeElementVisibility(selector, show) { document.querySelector(`.${selector}`).style.display = show ? "block" : "none";}function closeKebabMenu(){ document.getElementById("myDropdown").classList.toggle("show");}