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4.1: Using Comments

  • Page ID
    3958
  • \( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

    Before discussing any of the more complicated stuff, I want to introduce the comment character, #. It has a simple meaning: it tells R to ignore everything else you’ve written on this line. You won’t have much need of the # character immediately, but it’s very useful later on when writing scripts (see Chapter 8). However, while you don’t need to use it, I want to be able to include comments in my R extracts. For instance, if you read this:41

    seeker <- 3.1415           # create the first variable
    lover <- 2.7183            # create the second variable
    keeper <- seeker * lover   # now multiply them to create a third one
    print( keeper )            # print out the value of 'keeper'
    ## [1] 8.539539

    it’s a lot easier to understand what I’m doing than if I just write this:

    seeker <- 3.1415
    lover <- 2.7183
    keeper <- seeker * lover
    print( keeper ) 
    ## [1] 8.539539

    You might have already noticed that the code extracts in Chapter 3 included the # character, but from now on, you’ll start seeing # characters appearing in the extracts, with some human-readable explanatory remarks next to them. These are still perfectly legitimate commands, since R knows that it should ignore the # character and everything after it. But hopefully they’ll help make things a little easier to understand.


    This page titled 4.1: Using Comments is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Danielle Navarro via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.