R Operators

Arithmetic Operators

Arithmetic operators in R perform basic mathematical operations. They work on numeric data and return a numeric result. These include addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, modulus (remainder), and exponentiation.

+ — addition
- — subtraction
* — multiplication
/ — division (always returns a decimal for non-divisible numbers)
%% — modulus (remainder after division)
^ — exponentiation (power)

a <- 10
b <- 3

a + b    # 13
a - b    # 7
a * b    # 30
a / b    # 3.333
a %% b   # 1 (modulus)
a ^ b    # 1000 (exponent)

Relational Operators

Relational (comparison) operators compare two values and return a logical value (TRUE or FALSE). They are used in conditions for filtering, branching, and loops.

== — equal to
!= — not equal to
> — greater than
< — less than
>= — greater than or equal to
<= — less than or equal to

a <- 5
b <- 7

a == b   # FALSE
a != b   # TRUE
a > b    # FALSE
a < b    # TRUE
a >= 5   # TRUE
b <= 10  # TRUE

Logical Operators

Logical operators combine or modify logical values (TRUE / FALSE). They are often used in conditional statements or filtering operations.

& — element-wise AND (checks each element in vectors)
| — element-wise OR
! — logical NOT (negates the value)
&& — short-circuit AND (evaluates only the first element, used for single conditions)
|| — short-circuit OR (evaluates only the first element)

x <- TRUE
y <- FALSE

x & y    # FALSE (element-wise AND)
x | y    # TRUE  (element-wise OR)
!x       # FALSE (NOT x)

Use && and || for single-condition evaluation in control flow.

Assignment Operators

Assignment operators store values in variables. In R, the most common is <-, which is preferred in most style guides. The equals sign (=) is also valid but more often used for function arguments. The rightward assignment (->) is rare and mainly used for specific readability purposes.

<- — assign value to a variable (preferred)
= — assign value (common in other languages, valid in R)
-> — assign value from left to right

x <- 5      # preferred
y = 10      # also works
15 -> z     # rare but valid

Use <- for consistency across R codebases and to avoid confusion with equality checks.

Miscellaneous Operators

1:5           # creates a sequence from 1 to 5
"b" %in% c("a", "b", "c")   # TRUE

A <- matrix(1:4, nrow=2)
B <- matrix(1:4, nrow=2)
A %*% B    # matrix multiplication

Best Practices

Use vectorized operations instead of loops for performance
Use parentheses to enforce operator precedence
Be cautious with = versus <- for assignments

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