R tips

Packages and Libraries

New computer / R installed

Download R. 9/2021: R 4.1.1.

It is good idea to setup R_LIBS for R packages, see e.g. this. Go to My Computer and then to the advanced settings and environmental variables: “C:/R/libs” or as:

• R_LIBS and C:/R/libs without parentheses.

Check:

Sys.getenv('R_LIBS')
  .libPaths()

general stuff

Check version numbers of installed packages as

sessionInfo()

for example, model trained with newer package version may not work on another R having older package version. It can be also possible that error message doesn’t give hint to that direction if things are not working.

shortcuts

• CTRL-p: find open/close bracket and make comment after bracket closing, e.g. long loops.
• CTRL-i: make code prettier

Creativity

Bookdown

• bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown

Modeling

• lm

caret

xgboost

• vtreat package

• save models as rds / Rdata or check out xgboost::xgb.save() and xgboost::xgb.load() to have models in json-format.

Cloud

aws

• Paws is a Package for Amazon Web Services in R

gc

• googleCloudStorageR:: cran - googleCloudStorageR

• Google Big Query with R

data.table

if (!require(dplyr)) install.packages('dplyr')
library(dplyr)

datetime <- seq(ISOdate(2020, 05, 01), ISOdate(2020, 05, 31), "hours")

df <- data.frame(datetime, 
                 values = sample(0:100, length(datetime), rep = TRUE), 
                 cond = factor( rep_len(c("A","B"), length(datetime))), 
                 rating = c(rnorm(50),rnorm(length(datetime) - 50, mean=.8))) # [1]
head(df)

Random data set was generated.

• rleidv(): Nice function, if working with e.g. “transaction” data frames (not using e.g. zoo or ts package) to get serial ids to data.

• timewarp:: and lubridate:: to work with dates

Package developing

• pkgdown
• debugging, developing: have at least 2 Rstudio sessions open. Package development and another having package loaded to workspace. While testing new funcion, copy manually function code by clicking down icon ▼ to right ► and by copying one line to another session.

Microsoft Windows - Office (comma or dot as separator)

Data files can be messed up, if e.g. date is in format 18.11.2020 and other column has value 18.11 –> 18.11.2020 In this case, e.g. if you use Finnish keyboard and language do the following:

• Search: Alueasetukset
• Maa tai Alue: Suomi
• Alueasetus: Windows recommendation: Suositus (Suomi) -> englanti (Eurooppa)
• Vaihda datamuotoa: , -> .