R: Integer Vectors

integer {base} | R Documentation

## Integer Vectors

### Description

Creates or tests for objects of type `"integer"`.

### Usage

    integer(length = 0)
    as.integer(x, ...)
    is.integer(x)

### Arguments

`length` | A non-negative integer specifying the desired length. Double values will be coerced to integer: supplying an argument of length other than one is an error.
`x` | object to be coerced or tested.
`...` | further arguments passed to or from other methods.

### Details

Integer vectors exist so that data can be passed to C or Fortran code which expects them, and so that (small) integer data can be represented exactly and compactly.

Note that current implementations of R use 32-bit integers for integer vectors, so the range of representable integers is restricted to about +/-2*10^9: `double`s can hold much larger integers exactly.

### Value

`integer` creates a integer vector of the specified length. Each element of the vector is equal to `0`.

`as.integer` attempts to coerce its argument to be of integer type. The answer will be `NA` unless the coercion succeeds. Real values larger in modulus than the largest integer are coerced to `NA` (unlike S which gives the most extreme integer of the same sign). Non-integral numeric values are truncated towards zero (i.e., `as.integer(x)` equals `trunc(x)` there), and imaginary parts of complex numbers are discarded (with a warning). Character strings containing optional whitespace followed by either a decimal representation or a hexadecimal representation (starting with `0x` or `0X`) can be converted, as well as any allowed by the platform for real numbers. Like `as.vector` it strips attributes including names. (To ensure that an object `x` is of integer type without stripping attributes, use `storage.mode(x) <- "integer"`.)

`is.integer` returns `TRUE` or `FALSE` depending on whether its argument is of integer type or not, unless it is a factor when it returns `FALSE`.

### Note

`is.integer(x)` does not test if `x` contains integer numbers! For that, use `round`, as in the function `is.wholenumber(x)` in the examples.

### References

Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.

### See Also

`numeric`, `storage.mode`.

`round` (and `ceiling` and `floor` on that help page) to convert to integral values.

### Examples

    ## as.integer() truncates:
    x <- pi * c(-1:1,10)
    as.integer(x)

    is.integer(1) # is FALSE !

    is.wholenumber <-
        function(x, tol = .Machine$double.eps^0.5)  abs(x - round(x)) < tol
    is.wholenumber(1) # is TRUE
    (x <- seq(1,5, by=0.5) )
    is.wholenumber( x ) #-->  TRUE FALSE TRUE ...

[Package base version 2.15.2 Index]