Part I introduces you to the basics of the R language.

To use R, you must first download the program from the Internet. Chapter 1 describes how to install R on the Windows, OS X, and Linux operating systems. It also describes how to install and update packages and how to update R and use R within a file system.

Once you’ve installed and opened R, you are faced with an R prompt and little else. Chapter 2 presents the parts of R (objects, operators, and assignments), the R prompt, and an example of using R as a calculator from the R prompt.

Chapter 3 shows you how to assign names to expressions to create R objects and describes two functions: ls() for listing the objects in the workspace and rm() for removing objects from the workspace. It then discusses the operators that operate on objects and expressions: logical, arithmetic, matrix, relational, and subscripting operators, plus a few other special operators.