Extract Numerator & Denominator of Fraction in R (Example)

In this R programming tutorial, you’ll learn how to extract numerators and denominators of fractions.

The tutorial is structured as follows:

Let’s take a look at some R codes in action.

Example Data

Before all else, we have to define some data that we can use in the examples below.

fractions <- c("5/3", "6/4", "7/2")                   # define fraction vector

As seen, we defined a vector of fractions called fractions.

Please be aware that the fractions are in the string format here. If you are interested in numeric fractions, see my tutorial Convert Decimals to Reduced Fractions in R.

In the following example, we will see how to extract the numerators and denominators of the given fractions.

Example: Get Numerator & Denominator of Fractions

In this example, we will use the strplit() function, which splits the elements of a string vector into substrings according to the matching substring. In our case, this substring is the slash symbol "/".

split_fract <- strsplit(fractions, "/")               # split fraction into two parts
split_fract
# [[1]]
# [1] "5" "3"
 
# [[2]]
# [1] "6" "4"
 
# [[3]]
# [1] "7" "2"

The previous output of the RStudio console shows that strsplit() split the fractions into parts of numerators and denominators. All split fractions are stored in a separate vector within the output list split_fract.

In order to extract the numerators, we should retrieve the first elements of these vectors. Let’s see how it is done!

num<- as.integer(sapply(split_fract, "[", 1))     # extract numerators
num                                                   # print numerators
# [1] 5 6 7

In the script above, "[" is the indexing function, which accesses the indexes of a list or a vector. 1 is the parameter indicating which index will be accessed.

The sapply() function is employed to apply this indexing function to each vector of the split_fract list. Next, we will extract the denominator in a similar manner.

denom <- as.integer(sapply(split_fract, "[", 2))  # extract denominators
denom                                                 # print denominators
# [1] 3 4 2

As promised, all denominators are extracted by calling the second index of the vectors of split_fract.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

Do you want to know more about the extraction of numerator and denominators? Then, you may want to have a look at the following video on my YouTube channel. I’m explaining the R code of this tutorial in the video.

The YouTube video will be added soon.

In addition, you might read the other tutorials on www.statisticsglobe.com.

• Introduction to R
• Convert Decimals to Reduced Fractions in R
• Convert Fraction to Decimal in R
• apply Functions in R

Summary: In this article, I have demonstrated how to get numerators and denominators in R programming. Let me know in the comments in case you have further questions.

This page was created in collaboration with Cansu Kebabci. Have a look at Cansu’s author page to get more information about her professional background, a list of all his tutorials, as well as an overview on her other tasks on Statistics Globe.