Convert Matrix to Vector in R (3 Examples)

In this article, I’ll illustrate how to switch from matrix to vector format in the R programming language.

The article consists of three examples for the conversion of matrices. To be more precise, the article contains these content blocks:

Here’s how to do it:

Introducing Exemplifying Data

First, we have to construct some example data:

my_mat <- matrix(11:30, nrow = 4)    # Create example matrix
my_mat                               # Print example matrix
#      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
# [1,]   11   15   19   23   27
# [2,]   12   16   20   24   28
# [3,]   13   17   21   25   29
# [4,]   14   18   22   26   30

The previous RStudio console output shows the structure of our example data – It’s a matrix with four rows and five columns. All values in the matrix are numeric.

Example 1: Converting Matrix to Vector Using c() Function

In Example 1, I’ll show how to convert a matrix to a one-dimensional vector using the c() function:

c(my_mat)                            # Applying c function
# 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

As you can see, the output of the previous R code is a simple vector ranging from 11 to 30.

Example 2: Converting Matrix to Vector Using as.vector() Function

Alternatively to the c() function (as shown in Example 1), we can also use the as.vector function:

as.vector(my_mat)                    # Applying as.vector function
# 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

The result is exactly the same as in Example 1.

Example 3: Converting Matrix to Vector by Rows Using t() & as.vector() Functions

So far, we have converted our matrix by columns. However, it is also possible to convert a matrix to a one-dimensional vector by rows.

The following R programming code explains how to do this in R by using the t and as.vector functions:

as.vector(t(my_mat))                 # Applying t & as.vector functions
# 11 15 19 23 27 12 16 20 24 28 13 17 21 25 29 14 18 22 26 30

The previous output is containing row No. 1 first, row No. 2 second, and so on…

Video, Further Resources & Summary

Would you like to know more about matrices and arrays? Then you could watch the following video of my YouTube channel. I explain the contents of the present tutorial in the video.

In addition, you might want to read the related articles of my homepage. I have published several articles about related topics such as matrices, lists, data conversion, and vectors.

• Convert Named Vector to Data Frame in R
• Multiply Rows of Matrix by Vector in R
• Convert Data Frame Row to Vector in R
• Convert Vector to List in R
• Introduction to R Programming

You learned in this article how to convert and vectorize a matrix to a vector object in R programming. Let me know in the comments, in case you have further questions.