How to Create a Vector of Zero Length in R (Example)
In this post, I’ll explain how to create an empty vector in R programming.
Table of contents:
- Example 1: Create Empty Numeric Vector in R
- Example 2: Empty Vectors of Other Data Types
- Video, Further Resources & Summary
Let’s dive right in:
Example 1: Create Empty Numeric Vector in R
In Example 1, I’ll show you how to create a numeric vector of zero length. For this task, we can use the numeric() function as follows:
vec_num <- numeric() # Numeric vector of 0 length
The previous R code stored an empty numeric vector in the data object vec_num. Let’s print the vector to the RStudio console:
vec_num # Print empty vector # numeric(0)
As you can see, the output is a numeric array with zero length.
We can double check the length of our vector by applying the length function:
length(vec_num) # Apply length function # 0
The RStudio console shows the length of our numeric vector (i.e. 0).
Example 2: Empty Vectors of Other Data Types
In Example 1 you have learned how to create an empty vector of the numeric data class. However, we can create a vector with zero length of basically any data type. The following R code creates empty factors, logicals, integers, and so on…
vec_cha <- character() # Numeric vector of 0 length vec_fac <- factor() # Factor vector of 0 length vec_log <- logical() # Logical vector of 0 length vec_int <- integer() # Integer vector of 0 length vec_dou <- double() # Double vector of 0 length vec_raw <- raw() # Raw vector of 0 length vec_com <- complex() # Complex vector of 0 length
Video, Further Resources & Summary
Have a look at the following video of my YouTube channel. In the video, I’m explaining the R programming codes of this tutorial.
In addition, you might read some of the other posts of this homepage. A selection of related articles is shown below:
Summary: At this point you should have learned how to initialize a vector with a fixed length of zero in R. Let me know in the comments below, in case you have any additional questions.