[R] Help with r script

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Tue, 4 Sep 2018, Nathan D Jennings wrote:

> ?To the R Project:

This is the R-help mailing list, populated by various people who use R 
including the occasional R-core developer.

> I am using R Studio and I need help sum product exponents with R Script.

a) This is the R-help mailing list, not the RStudio-help mailing list. 
RStudio is only one of numerous user interfaces that can be used to 
interact with R. This mailing list is about the language, not the user 
interface. They do have a forum [1].

>  Every time I type at the very start in the R Script window like 25* 30 
> nothing happens.

b) I think the window you are describing as the "R Script" window is 
actually a text editor window. All interaction with R occurs in the R 
Console, and the text editor window is a place to keep organized in a file 
the commands you write that seem to do what you want when executed in the 
Console. Usually you will need a number of commands executed in sequence 
to accomplish whatever analysis goal you have, so a text file is a good 
place to keep those commands organized. You can position the cursor on an 
R command in the editor and hold down the control key and press Enter, and 
RStudio will type it into the console window for you. Once you are 
confident those commands work you can use the source() function to have R 
execute the entire file of commands at once. You would look for the 
response/result/output in the Console and/or the Plot windows depending 
which commands you used.

>  Where can I go to find the complete commands for basic functions in the 
> r script window?

c) I don't think that there is any comprehensive list of commands you can 
give to R. There are many introductory R books, and there is an 
Introduction to R document provided with R [2]. You might find the 
cheatsheets listed under the Help/Cheatsheets menu in RStudio helpful to 
give you some clues. If you want a thorough discussion of the structure of 
the R language you can refer to the R Language Definition [3], but that is 
really rather dense going if you are just starting out... an introductory 
book or the r-intro document would probably be most useful to you at this 
point.

Finally, per the Posting Guide mentioned below this mailing list is not 
appropriate for students doing homework... from your email address I think 
you should have local resources who can boost you up the learning curve 
much more efficiently than we can through a plain text mailing list (or 
even the RStudio forum). In this mailing list, you need to understand 
enough R to be able to post R code that illustrates what isn't working for 
you, along with a clear specification of what you wanted to get.

[1] https://community.rstudio.com/
[2] https://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/r-release/R-intro.pdf
[3] https://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html

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