seq Function in R (5 Examples)

In this tutorial you’ll learn how to generate a sequence of numbers using the seq function in the R programming language.

The article looks as follows:

1) Definition & Basic R Syntax of seq Function

2) Example 1: Basic Application of seq() Function

3) Example 2: Generating Sequence from X to Y

4) Example 3: Generating Sequence from X to Y by Certain Value

5) Example 4: Generating Sequence from X to Y with Given Length

6) Example 5: Generating Sequence from X to Y Along Certain Data Object

7) Video, Further Resources & Summary

Let’s get started.

Definition & Basic R Syntax of seq Function

Definition: The seq R function generates a sequence of numeric values.

Basic R Syntax: You can find the basic R programming syntax of the seq function below.

seq(1, 5)                       # Basic R syntax of seq function

In the following, I’ll show five examples for the application of the seq function in R programming.

Example 1: Basic Application of seq() Function

The following code illustrates how to apply the seq function in its most minimalistic way:

seq(10)                         # Apply seq function
# 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

In the previous R code, we simply specified the value 10 within the seq function. In this case, the function uses the value 1 as starting point and the value 10 as ending point of the sequence. As you can see based on the previous R code, we therefore created a numeric vector ranging from 1 to 10.

Example 2: Generating Sequence from X to Y

In this Section, I’ll show how to modify the starting point of our sequence using the from argument of the seq function.

seq(3, 10)                      # seq function from to
# 3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10

In the previous R syntax, we specified two values. The first value is the starting point (i.e. the from argument) and the second value is the ending point (i.e. the to argument).

Example 3: Generating Sequence from X to Y by Certain Value

In this Example, I’ll explain how to create a sequence with an increment unequal to 1. For this, we have to specify a third value within the seq function (i.e. the by argument):

seq(3, 10, 0.5)                 # seq function by 0.5
# 3.0  3.5  4.0  4.5  5.0  5.5  6.0  6.5  7.0  7.5  8.0  8.5  9.0  9.5 10.0

The previous R code generated a sequence with increment 0.33.

Example 4: Generating Sequence from X to Y with Given Length

In Example 4, I’ll explain how to return a sequence of numeric values with a manually specified length using the length.out argument. In this example, we specify that the length of our vector should be 5:

seq(3, 10, length.out = 5)      # Sequence of length 5
# 3.00  4.75  6.50  8.25 10.00

Example 5: Generating Sequence from X to Y Along Certain Data Object

Similar to the length.out argument shown in Example 4, we can also use the along.with argument. The along.with argument specifies that the output of the seq function should have the same length as the data object assigned to along.with.

seq(3, 10, along.with = 1:5)    # Using along.with argument
# 3.00  4.75  6.50  8.25 10.00

Video, Further Resources & Summary

I have recently published a video on my YouTube channel, which shows the examples of this post. Please find the video below:

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In addition to the video, you may want to have a look at some of the other articles of my website. I have released several articles already.

In summary: This article showed how to apply the seq function in the R programming language.

Note that the R programming language provides some primitive alternatives to the seq function, which can be used to improve the speed and efficiency of a code. These functions include seq.int(), seq_along(), and seq_len().

Don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments below, in case you have any additional questions and/or comments. In addition, don’t forget to subscribe to my email newsletter in order to get updates on new articles.

16 Comments. Leave new

Syed Rashid Ali
January 4, 2022 4:26 pm

hi i have a problem in R code, can u halp me thanx
Rashid Ali
from karachi Pakistan.

Reply
- Joachim
  January 5, 2022 10:00 am
  
  Hey Rashid,
  
  Could you post your question here in the comments?
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
Ghotala
January 6, 2022 8:08 pm

Hi Joachim

How to create a vector using seq function if the size of the vector given is 10 and the elements in
the vector are multiples of 5 arranged sequentially, starting from 40?

Reply
- Joachim
  January 7, 2022 9:58 am
  Hey Ghotala,
  
  Do you mean like that?
  seq(from = 40, length.out = 10, by = 5) # [1] 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
  seq(from = 40, length.out = 10, by = 5) # [1] 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
  Regards,
  Joachim
  Reply
Ayesha
January 8, 2022 3:46 pm

Hi please help me with this question,
# Try to write a code for printing sequence of numbers from 1 to 50 with the differences of 3, 5, 10

Reply
- Joachim
  January 10, 2022 9:55 am
  
  Hey Ayesha,
  
  Could you share the code you have tried yourself so far?
  
  I’m happy to help, but I want to avoid doing your entire assignment. 🙂
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
Stephen
February 25, 2022 11:42 am

I would like some help with my R code. How does one use seq() or rep() in creating the following vector in R. 8.0, 7.5, 7.0, 6.5, 6.0, 5.5, 5.0, 4.5, 4.0, 3.5, 3.0, 2.5, 2.0

Reply
- Joachim
  March 9, 2022 11:18 am
  
  Hey Stephen,
  
  Apologies for the late reply, I just got back from vacation. Do you still need help with this?
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
tharu
February 27, 2022 2:14 am

hi
i typed this code: seq(c(4,3,4,4,5) and got the output as #1 2 3 4 5 6
can you explain the logic of getting this

Reply
- Joachim
  March 9, 2022 11:34 am
  
  Hi Tharu,
  
  I’m sorry for the late response, I just came back from holidays. Are you still looking for help?
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
Sookja
February 28, 2022 5:59 pm

How about : inside of seq()?

i.e. seq(4:12)

Reply
- Joachim
  March 9, 2022 11:36 am
  
  Hey Sookja,
  
  Could you illustrate your desired output?
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
Amarjeet Kumar
June 6, 2022 6:26 am

3. Create Data frame with 3 columns and 5 rows and write a code to fetch and delete row and a column using index and add new column and row to the existed data frame.

>>can someone please share me answer?

Reply
- Joachim
  June 7, 2022 8:12 am
  
  Hey Amarjeet,
  
  I would need some more context to answer this question. Furthermore, please share the code you have tried yourself. I don’t want to do your entire assignment for you 😉
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply
Suman Gajurel
July 14, 2022 8:18 am

Hi, I have a question regarding the sequence.
I have got this vector :- v1 <- c(150, 150, 300, 300, 300). Now I want to have another vector with a same length based on v1 as follows

v2 <- c(v1[1], v1[2]+v1[1], v1[3]+v1[2]+v1[1], v1[4] +v1[3]+v1[2]+v1[1], v1[5]+v1[4]+ v1[3]+v1[2]+v1[1], length.out = length(v1))

How do write a script for this? sometimes I may not know the exact length so the script has to do it automatically based on length.

Reply
- Joachim
  July 17, 2022 7:33 am
  
  Hey Suman,
  
  Are you looking for the “cumulative sum” of your vector? Have a look here for more details.
  
  Regards,
  Joachim
  
  Reply