Assignments to Lecture 2 – More Introduction into R
Danny Arends
Control structures
1a) Generate a random uniform value (between 0 and 1) using the runif() function and store
this value in a variable with the name ‘unknown’.
1b) Use an if statement and use the cat() or print() function to print out either: lower or higher if
the variable is smaller then 0.5 or bigger than 0.5
1c) Generate a uniform value between -10 and 30, round() it to 0 digits behind the comma, and
using an if statement check if the value you generated is between 0 and 10 (inclusive), if the
variable is not in this range throw a stop error.
2a) Using a for loop and sum up all the numbers from 1 to 1000 (inclusive), you can check if your
answer is correct by comparing the result to the result of sum(1:1000)
2b) Do the same thing as in assignment 2a, but now use a while loop
3) Create a for loop that does the following a 100 times:
* Generate a random number between 0 and 100 and store it in a variable
* Using a if/else if/else statement check if the variable is lower/higher or equal to 42
* Using the cat() function print one of these three statements, (replace X by the random number
generated), make sure you add a newline to the cat statement:
“X is lower than 42”, “X is higher then 42” or “42 is the answer to life the universe and everything”
4) Use a while or a for loop and the cat() function to print out a triangle of #, having 12 lines,
each line should have one more hashtage then the previous line:
#
##
###
####
...
############
Make sure that there are NO spaces between the hashtags, and that there is NO additional
whitespace (called trailing white space) before the end of the line.
Tip: Use \n for going to the next line
Escaping
5) Use character escaping and print the following two sentences literally to a file (test.txt), using
the cat() function:
I say: "Escaping stuff is 'great', but \ and / might be a nuisance."
You are correct, but I think the \t and \b create more problems then a basic “
Check your results by opening the create test.txt file in notepad++
Random variables
6a) Set your random number generator seed to a number of your choice
6b) Using runif() generate a vector containing 15 random numbers, between 0 and 10 and store
it in a variable called ‘random1’
6c) Use the round() function to round your random numbers in ‘random1’
6d) Reset your seed to your number, and generate a single random number using rnorm()
6e) Now repeat steps 0b, and 0c, store the results in variable ‘random2’
6f) Why is the content of ‘random1’ and ‘random2’ not equal to each other, and what do you
observe when looking at the sequence of numbers generated?
Functions
7) Create a function that returns the result of a coin flip (“Heads”, “Tails”)
flipCoin <- function(){
#<your code here>
}
8) Re-use the code you created in assignment 4, but now make it a function (called triangle) that
prints an triangle of which the size can be specified by the user. The function signature will look
something like, here size is the parameter that lets the user specify the number of rows of the
triangle:
triangle <- function(size){
#<your code here>
}
9) Create a function that calculates the factorial ( 5! = 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 ) of a given number, the
function signature should look like this, here x is the function parameter, that represents/holds
the input provided by the user:
myfactorial <- function(x){
#<your code here>
}
Assignment: fill in the code to make this a working factorial function.
Additional Assignments:
Your candle fades, as you walk into darkness.
Suddenly you realize you are on your own.
Extra 1) The nice thing in R is that we could call our function "!" this then allows us to type:
!5
to calculate 5!, the assignment is to create a new function called "!", and inside this function call
you myfactorial function, test this new function by calculating the factorial of 5, using !5
Extra 2) Remember that each computational task (+, -, *, /) requires time. Revisit assignment 2
and find a smarter (more efficient) way to do this.
Note: This is actually a question teachers use in elementary school to test children’s ability for
mathematics... :-)
Extra 3) Create a function that checks if a number is a prime number (A prime number is one
with exactly two positive divisors) use euclidian division
