assignment operator r

Secure Your Spot in Our PCA Online Course Starting on April 02 (Click for More Info)

Assignment Operators in R (3 Examples) | Comparing = vs. ＜- vs. ＜＜-

On this page you’ll learn how to apply the different assignment operators in the R programming language .

The content of the article is structured as follows:

Let’s dive right into the exemplifying R syntax!

Example 1: Why You Should Use ＜- Instead of = in R

Generally speaking, there is a preference in the R programming community to use an arrow (i.e. ＜-) instead of an equal sign (i.e. =) for assignment.

In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense to stick to this convention to produce scripts that are easy to read for other R programmers.

However, you should also take care about the spacing when assigning in R. False spacing can even lead to error messages .

For instance, the following R code checks whether x is smaller than minus five due to the false blank between ＜ and -:

A properly working assignment could look as follows:

However, this code is hard to read, since the missing space makes it difficult to differentiate between the different symbols and numbers.

In my opinion, the best way to assign in R is to put a blank before and after the assignment arrow:

As mentioned before, the difference between ＜- and = is mainly due to programming style . However, the following R code using an equal sign would also work:

In the following example, I’ll show a situation where ＜- and = do not lead to the same result. So keep on reading!

Example 2: When ＜- is Really Different Compared to =

In this Example, I’ll illustrate some substantial differences between assignment arrows and equal signs.

Let’s assume that we want to compute the mean of a vector ranging from 1 to 5. Then, we could use the following R code:

However, if we want to have a look at the vector x that we have used within the mean function, we get an error message:

Let’s compare this to exactly the same R code but with assignment arrow instead of an equal sign:

The output of the mean function is the same. However, the assignment arrow also stored the values in a new data object x:

This example shows a meaningful difference between = and ＜-. While the equal sign doesn’t store the used values outside of a function, the assignment arrow saves them in a new data object that can be used outside the function.

Example 3: The Difference Between ＜- and ＜＜-

So far, we have only compared ＜- and =. However, there is another assignment method we have to discuss: The double assignment arrow ＜＜- (also called scoping assignment).

The following code illustrates the difference between ＜- and ＜＜- in R. This difference mainly gets visible when applying user-defined functions .

Let’s manually create a function that contains a single assignment arrow:

Now, let’s apply this function in R:

The data object x_fun1, to which we have assigned the value 5 within the function, does not exist:

Let’s do the same with a double assignment arrow:

Let’s apply the function:

And now let’s return the data object x_fun2:

As you can see based on the previous output of the RStudio console, the assignment via ＜＜- saved the data object in the global environment outside of the user-defined function.

Video & Further Resources

I have recently released a video on my YouTube channel , which explains the R syntax of this tutorial. You can find the video below:

The YouTube video will be added soon.

In addition to the video, I can recommend to have a look at the other articles on this website.

R Programming Examples

In summary: You learned on this page how to use assignment operators in the R programming language. If you have further questions, please let me know in the comments.

assignment-operators-in-r How to use different assignment operators in R – 3 R programming examples – R programming language tutorial – Actionable R programming syntax in RStudio

Subscribe to the Statistics Globe Newsletter

Get regular updates on the latest tutorials, offers & news at Statistics Globe. I hate spam & you may opt out anytime: Privacy Policy .

Statistics Globe Newsletter

Get regular updates on the latest tutorials, offers & news at Statistics Globe. I hate spam & you may opt out anytime: Privacy Policy .

Change Default Time Zone in R (2 Examples)

How to Compute Euler’s Number in R (Example)

Assignment Operators

Description.

Assign a value to a name.

There are three different assignment operators: two of them have leftwards and rightwards forms.

The operators <- and = assign into the environment in which they are evaluated. The operator <- can be used anywhere, whereas the operator = is only allowed at the top level (e.g., in the complete expression typed at the command prompt) or as one of the subexpressions in a braced list of expressions.

The operators <<- and ->> are normally only used in functions, and cause a search to be made through parent environments for an existing definition of the variable being assigned. If such a variable is found (and its binding is not locked) then its value is redefined, otherwise assignment takes place in the global environment. Note that their semantics differ from that in the S language, but are useful in conjunction with the scoping rules of R . See ‘The R Language Definition’ manual for further details and examples.

In all the assignment operator expressions, x can be a name or an expression defining a part of an object to be replaced (e.g., z[[1]] ). A syntactic name does not need to be quoted, though it can be (preferably by backtick s).

The leftwards forms of assignment <- = <<- group right to left, the other from left to right.

value . Thus one can use a <- b <- c <- 6 .

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

Chambers, J. M. (1998) Programming with Data. A Guide to the S Language . Springer (for = ).

assign (and its inverse get ), for “subassignment” such as x[i] <- v , see [<- ; further, environment .

R Operators

R Operator Precedence and Associativitys

R Flow Control

R if…else Statement

R ifelse() Function

R while Loop
R break and next Statement
R repeat loop
R Functions
R Return Value from Function
R Environment and Scope
R Recursive Function

R Infix Operator

R switch() Function

R Data Structures

R Data Frame

R Object & Class

R Classes and Objects
R Reference Class

R Graphs & Charts

R Histograms
R Pie Chart
R Strip Chart

R Advanced Topics

R Plot Function
R Multiple Plots
Saving a Plot in R
R Plot Color

R Tutorials

Programming

Introduction

R installation
Working directory
Getting help
Install packages

Data structures

Data Wrangling

Sort and order
Merge data frames

Programming

Creating functions
If else statement
apply function
sapply function
tapply function

Import & export

Read TXT files
Import CSV files
Read Excel files
Read SQL databases
Export data
plot function
Scatter plot
Density plot
Tutorials Introduction Data wrangling Graphics Statistics See all

R operators

Learn all about the R programming language operators

There are several operators in R, such that arithmetic operators for math calculations, logical, relational or assignment operators or even the popular pipe operator. In this tutorial we will show you the R operators divided into operator types. In addition, we will show examples of use of every operator.

Arithmetic operators

The R arithmetic operators allows us to do math operations , like sums, divisions or multiplications, among others. The following table summarizes all base R arithmetic operators.

In the next block of code you will find examples of basic calculations with arithmetic operations with integers.

You can also use the basic operations with R vectors of the same length . Note that the result of these operations will be a vector with element-wise operation results.

Furthermore, you can use those arithmetic operators with matrix objects, besides the ones designed for this type of object (matrix multiplication types). Check our tutorial about matrix operations to learn more.

Logical / boolean operators

In addition, boolean or logical operators in R are used to specify multiple conditions between objects. These comparisons return TRUE and FALSE values.

Relational / comparison operators in R

Comparison or relational operators are designed to compare objects and the output of these comparisons are of type boolean. To clarify, the following table summarizes the R relational operators.

For example, you can compare integer values with these operators as follows.

If you compare vectors the output will be other vector of the same length and each element will contain the boolean corresponding to the comparison of the corresponding elements (the first element of the first vector with the first element of the second vector and so on). Moreover, you can compare each element of a matrix against other.

Assignment operators in R

The assignment operators in R allows you to assign data to a named object in order to store the data .

Note that in almost scripting programming languages you can just use the equal (=) operator. However, in R it is recommended to use the arrow assignment ( <- ) and use the equal sign only to set arguments.

The arrow assignment can be used as left or right assignment, but the right assignment is not generally used. In addition, you can use the double arrow assignment, known as scoping assignment, but we won’t enter in more detail in this tutorial, as it is for advanced users. You can know more about this assignment operator in our post about functions in R .

In the following code block you will find some examples of these operators.

If you need to use the right assignment remember that the object you want to store needs to be at the left, or an error will arise.

There are some rules when naming variables. For instance, you can use letters, numbers, dots and underscores in the variable name, but underscores can’t be the first character of the variable name.

Reserved words

There are also reserved words you can’t use, like TRUE , FALSE , NULL , among others. You can see the full list of R reserved words typing help(Reserved) or ?Reserved .

However, if for some reason you need to name your variable with a reserved word or starting with an underscore you will need to use backticks:

Miscellaneous R operators

Miscellaneous operators in R are operators used for specific purposes , as accessing data, functions, creating sequences or specifying a formula of a model. To clarify, the next table contains all the available miscellaneous operators in R.

In addition, in the following block of code we show several examples of these operators:

Infix operator

You can call an operator as a function . This is known as infix operators. Note that this type of operators are not generally used or needed.

Pipe operator in R

The pipe operator is an operator you can find in several libraries, like dplyr . The operator can be read as ‘AND THEN’ and its purpose is to simplify the syntax when writing R code. As an example, you could subset the cars dataset and then create a summary of the subset with the following code:

Learn how to plot your data in R with the base package and ggplot2

Free resource

PYTHON CHARTS

Learn how to create plots in Python with matplotlib, seaborn, plotly and folium

assignOps: Assignment Operators

Assignment operators, description.

Assign a value to a name.

There are three different assignment operators: two of them have leftwards and rightwards forms.

The leftwards forms of assignment <- = <<- group right to left, the other from left to right.

value . Thus one can use a <- b <- c <- 6 .

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

Chambers, J. M. (1998) Programming with Data. A Guide to the S Language . Springer (for = ).

assign (and its inverse get ), for “subassignment” such as x[i] <- v , see [<- ; further, environment .

R Package Documentation

Browse r packages, we want your feedback.

Add the following code to your website.

REMOVE THIS Copy to clipboard

For more information on customizing the embed code, read Embedding Snippets .

UC Business Analytics R Programming Guide

Assignment & evaluation.

The first operator you’ll run into is the assignment operator. The assignment operator is used to assign a value. For instance we can assign the value 3 to the variable x using the <- assignment operator. We can then evaluate the variable by simply typing x at the command line which will return the value of x . Note that prior to the value returned you’ll see ## [1] in the command line. This simply implies that the output returned is the first output. Note that you can type any comments in your code by preceding the comment with the hashtag ( # ) symbol. Any values, symbols, and texts following # will not be evaluated.

Interestingly, R actually allows for five assignment operators:

The original assignment operator in R was <- and has continued to be the preferred among R users. The = assignment operator was added in 2001 primarily because it is the accepted assignment operator in many other languages and beginners to R coming from other languages were so prone to use it. However, R uses = to associate function arguments with values (i.e. f(x = 3) explicitly means to call function f and set the argument x to 3. Consequently, most R programmers prefer to keep = reserved for argument association and use <- for assignment.

The operators <<- is normally only used in functions which we will not get into the details. And the rightward assignment operators perform the same as their leftward counterparts, they just assign the value in an opposite direction.

Overwhelmed yet? Don’t be. This is just meant to show you that there are options and you will likely come across them sooner or later. My suggestion is to stick with the tried and true <- operator. This is the most conventional assignment operator used and is what you will find in all the base R source code…which means it should be good enough for you.

Lastly, note that R is a case sensitive programming language. Meaning all variables, functions, and objects must be called by their exact spelling:

Blog of Ken W. Alger

Just another Tech Blog

Assignment Operators in R – Which One to Use and Where

Assignment Operators

R has five common assignment operators:

Many style guides and traditionalists prefer the left arrow operator, <- . Why use that when it’s an extra keystroke? <- always means assignment. The equal sign is overloaded a bit taking on the roles of an assignment operator, function argument binding, or depending on the context, case statement.

Equal or “arrow” as an Assignment Operator?

In R, both the equal and arrow symbols work to assign values. Therefore, the following statements have the same effect of assigning a value on the right to the variable on the left:

There is also a right arrow, -> which assigns the value on the left, to a variable on the right:

All three assign the value of forty-two to the variable x .

So what’s the difference? Are these assignment operators interchangeable? Mostly, yes. The difference comes into play, however, when working with functions.

The equal sign can also work as an operator for function parameters.

x <- 42 y <- 18 function(value = x-y)

History of the <- Operator

The S language also didn’t have == for equality testing, so that was left to the single equal sign. Therefore, variable assignment needed to be accomplished with a different symbol, and the arrow was chosen.

There are some differences of opinion as to which assignment operator to use when it comes to = vs <-. Some believe that = is more clear. The <- operator maintains backward compatibility with S. Google’s R Style Guide recommends using the <- assignment operator, which seems to be a pretty decent reason as well. When all is said and done, though, it is like many things in programming, it depends on what your team does.

Multiple assignment operators

Description.

Assign values to name(s).

%<-% and %->% invisibly return value .

These operators are used primarily for their assignment side-effect. %<-% and %->% assign into the environment in which they are evaluated.

Name Structure

At its simplest, the name structure may be a single variable name, in which case %<-% and %->% perform regular assignment, x %<-% list(1, 2, 3) or list(1, 2, 3) %->% x .

To specify multiple variable names use a call to c() , for example c(x, y, z) %<-% c(1, 2, 3) .

When value is neither an atomic vector nor a list, %<-% and %->% will try to destructure value into a list before assigning variables, see destructure() .

object parts

Like assigning a variable, one may also assign part of an object, c(x, x[[1]]) %<-% list(list(), 1) .

nested names

One can also nest calls to c() when needed, c(x, c(y, z)) . This nested structure is used to unpack nested values, c(x, c(y, z)) %<-% list(1, list(2, 3)) .

collector variables

To gather extra values from the beginning, middle, or end of value use a collector variable. Collector variables are indicated with a ... prefix, c(...start, z) %<-% list(1, 2, 3, 4) .

skipping values

Use . in place of a variable name to skip a value without raising an error or assigning the value, c(x, ., z) %<-% list(1, 2, 3) .

Use ... to skip multiple values without raising an error or assigning the values, c(w, ..., z) %<-% list(1, NA, NA, 4) .

default values

Use = to specify a default value for a variable, c(x, y = NULL) %<-% tail(1, 2) .

When assigning part of an object a default value may not be specified because of the syntax enforced by R . The following would raise an "unexpected '=' ..." error, c(x, x[[1]] = 1) %<-% list(list()) .

For more on unpacking custom objects please refer to destructure() .

Data Visualization

Statistics in R
Machine Learning in R
Data Science in R

Packages in R

R Tutorial | Learn R Programming Language

Introduction

R Programming Language - Introduction
Interesting Facts about R Programming Language
R vs Python
Environments in R Programming
Introduction to R Studio
How to Install R and R Studio?
Creation and Execution of R File in R Studio
Clear the Console and the Environment in R Studio
Hello World in R Programming

Fundamentals of R

Basic Syntax in R Programming
Comments in R

R Operators

R - Keywords
R Data Types
R Variables - Creating, Naming and Using Variables in R
Scope of Variable in R
Dynamic Scoping in R Programming
Lexical Scoping in R Programming

Input/Output

Taking Input from User in R Programming
Printing Output of an R Program
Print the Argument to the Screen in R Programming - print() Function

Control Flow

Control Statements in R Programming
Decision Making in R Programming - if, if-else, if-else-if ladder, nested if-else, and switch
Switch case in R
For loop in R
R - while loop
R - Repeat loop
goto statement in R Programming
Break and Next statements in R
Functions in R Programming
Function Arguments in R Programming
Types of Functions in R Programming
Recursive Functions in R Programming
Conversion Functions in R Programming

Data Structures

Data Structures in R Programming
R - Matrices
R - Data Frames

Object Oriented Programming

R - Object Oriented Programming
Classes in R Programming
R - Objects
Encapsulation in R Programming
Polymorphism in R Programming
R - Inheritance
Abstraction in R Programming
Looping over Objects in R Programming
S3 class in R Programming
Explicit Coercion in R Programming

Error Handling

Handling Errors in R Programming
Condition Handling in R Programming
Debugging in R Programming

File Handling

File Handling in R Programming
Reading Files in R Programming
Writing to Files in R Programming
Working with Binary Files in R Programming
Packages in R Programming
Data visualization with R and ggplot2
dplyr Package in R Programming
Grid and Lattice Packages in R Programming
Shiny Package in R Programming
tidyr Package in R Programming
What Are the Tidyverse Packages in R Language?
Data Munging in R Programming

Data Interfaces

Data Handling in R Programming
Importing Data in R Script
Exporting Data from scripts in R Programming
Working with CSV files in R Programming
Working with XML Files in R Programming
Working with Excel Files in R Programming
Working with JSON Files in R Programming
Working with Databases in R Programming
Data Visualization in R
R - Line Graphs
R - Bar Charts
Histograms in R language
Scatter plots in R Language
R - Pie Charts
Boxplots in R Language
R - Statistics
Mean, Median and Mode in R Programming
Calculate the Average, Variance and Standard Deviation in R Programming
Descriptive Analysis in R Programming
Normal Distribution in R
Binomial Distribution in R Programming
ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) Test in R Programming
Covariance and Correlation in R Programming
Skewness and Kurtosis in R Programming
Hypothesis Testing in R Programming
Bootstrapping in R Programming
Time Series Analysis in R

Machine Learning

Introduction to Machine Learning in R
Setting up Environment for Machine Learning with R Programming
Supervised and Unsupervised Learning in R Programming
Regression and its Types in R Programming
Classification in R Programming
Naive Bayes Classifier in R Programming
KNN Classifier in R Programming
Clustering in R Programming
Decision Tree in R Programming
Random Forest Approach in R Programming
Hierarchical Clustering in R Programming
DBScan Clustering in R Programming
Deep Learning in R Programming

Operators are the symbols directing the compiler to perform various kinds of operations between the operands. Operators simulate the various mathematical, logical, and decision operations performed on a set of Complex Numbers, Integers, and Numericals as input operands.

R Operators

R supports majorly four kinds of binary operators between a set of operands. In this article, we will see various types of operators in R Programming language and their usage.

Types of the operator in R language

Arithmetic Operators

Logical operators, relational operators, assignment operators, miscellaneous operators.

Arithmetic Operators modulo using the specified operator between operands, which may be either scalar values, complex numbers, or vectors. The R operators are performed element-wise at the corresponding positions of the vectors.

Addition operator (+)

The values at the corresponding positions of both operands are added. Consider the following R operator snippet to add two vectors:

Subtraction Operator (-)

The second operand values are subtracted from the first. Consider the following R operator snippet to subtract two variables:

Multiplication Operator (*)

The multiplication of corresponding elements of vectors and Integers are multiplied with the use of the ‘*’ operator.

Division Operator (/)

The first operand is divided by the second operand with the use of the ‘/’ operator.

Power Operator (^)

The first operand is raised to the power of the second operand.

Modulo Operator (%%)

The remainder of the first operand divided by the second operand is returned.

The following R code illustrates the usage of all Arithmetic R operators.

Output

Logical Operators in R simulate element-wise decision operations, based on the specified operator between the operands, which are then evaluated to either a True or False boolean value. Any non-zero integer value is considered as a TRUE value, be it a complex or real number.

Element-wise Logical AND operator (&)

Returns True if both the operands are True.

Element-wise Logical OR operator (|)

Returns True if either of the operands is True.

NOT operator (!)

A unary operator that negates the status of the elements of the operand.

Logical AND operator (&&)

Returns True if both the first elements of the operands are True.

Logical OR operator (||)

Returns True if either of the first elements of the operands is True.

The following R code illustrates the usage of all Logical Operators in R:

The Relational Operators in R carry out comparison operations between the corresponding elements of the operands. Returns a boolean TRUE value if the first operand satisfies the relation compared to the second. A TRUE value is always considered to be greater than the FALSE.

Less than (<)

Returns TRUE if the corresponding element of the first operand is less than that of the second operand. Else returns FALSE.

Less than equal to (<=)

Returns TRUE if the corresponding element of the first operand is less than or equal to that of the second operand. Else returns FALSE.

Greater than (>)

Returns TRUE if the corresponding element of the first operand is greater than that of the second operand. Else returns FALSE.

Greater than equal to (>=)

Returns TRUE if the corresponding element of the first operand is greater or equal to that of the second operand. Else returns FALSE.

Not equal to (!=)

Returns TRUE if the corresponding element of the first operand is not equal to the second operand. Else returns FALSE.

The following R code illustrates the usage of all Relational Operators in R:

Assignment Operators in R are used to assigning values to various data objects in R. The objects may be integers, vectors, or functions. These values are then stored by the assigned variable names. There are two kinds of assignment operators: Left and Right

Left Assignment (<- or <<- or =)

Assigns a value to a vector.

Right Assignment (-> or ->>)

Assigns value to a vector.

Miscellaneous Operator are the mixed operators in R that simulate the printing of sequences and assignment of vectors, either left or right-handed.

%in% Operator

Checks if an element belongs to a list and returns a boolean value TRUE if the value is present else FALSE.

%*% Operator

$A_{r*c} x B_c*r -> P_{r*r}$

The following R code illustrates the usage of all Miscellaneous Operators in R:

Please Login to comment...

Improve your coding skills with practice.

What kind of Experience do you want to share?

Introduction to R

Assignment operators.

You can assign values or functions to R objects using <- operator.

R Data Structures

R statistics, r operators.

Operators are used to perform operations on variables and values.

In the example below, we use the + operator to add together two values:

R divides the operators in the following groups:

Arithmetic operators
Assignment operators
Comparison operators
Logical operators
Miscellaneous operators

R Arithmetic Operators

Arithmetic operators are used with numeric values to perform common mathematical operations:

R Assignment Operators

Assignment operators are used to assign values to variables:

Note: <<- is a global assigner. You will learn more about this in the Global Variable chapter .

It is also possible to turn the direction of the assignment operator.

x <- 3 is equal to 3 -> x

R Comparison Operators

Comparison operators are used to compare two values:

R Logical Operators

Logical operators are used to combine conditional statements:

R Miscellaneous Operators

Miscellaneous operators are used to manipulate data:

Note: You will learn more about Matrix multiplication and matrices in a later chapter.

COLOR PICKER

Contact Sales

If you want to use W3Schools services as an educational institution, team or enterprise, send us an e-mail: [email protected]

Report Error

If you want to report an error, or if you want to make a suggestion, send us an e-mail: [email protected]

R news and tutorials contributed by hundreds of R bloggers

Why do we use arrow as an assignment operator.

Posted on September 23, 2018 by Colin Fay in R bloggers | 0 Comments

[social4i size="small" align="align-left"] --> [This article was first published on Colin Fay , and kindly contributed to R-bloggers ]. (You can report issue about the content on this page here ) Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.

A Twitter Thread turned into a blog post.

In June, I published a little thread on Twitter about the history of the <- assignment operator in R. Here is a blog post version of this thread.

Historical reasons

As you all know, R comes from S. But you might not know a lot about S (I don’t). This language used <- as an assignment operator. It’s partly because it was inspired by a language called APL, which also had this sign for assignment.

But why again? APL was designed on a specific keyboard, which had a key for <- :

At that time, it was also chosen because there was no == for testing equality: equality was tested with = , so assigning a variable needed to be done with another symbol.

From APL Reference Manual

Until 2001 , in R, = could only be used for assigning function arguments, like fun(foo = "bar") (remember that R was born in 1993). So before 2001, the <- was the standard (and only way) to assign value into a variable.

Before that, _ was also a valid assignment operator. It was removed in R 1.8 :

(So no, at that time, no snake_case_naming_convention)

Colin Gillespie published some of his code from early 2000 , where assignment was made like this 🙂

The main reason “equal assignment” was introduced is because other languages uses = as an assignment method, and because it increased compatibility with S-Plus.

Readability

Nowadays, there are seldom any cases when you can’t use one in place of the other. It’s safe to use = almost everywhere. Yet, <- is preferred and advised in R Coding style guides:

https://google.github.io/styleguide/Rguide.xml#assignment
http://adv-r.had.co.nz/Style.html

One reason, if not historical, to prefer the <- is that it clearly states in which side you are making the assignment (you can assign from left to right or from right to left in R):

The RHS assignment can for example be used for assigning the result of a pipe

Also, it’s easier to distinguish equality comparison and assignment in the last line of code here:

Note that <<- and ->> also exist:

And that Ross Ihaka uses = : https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/JSM-2010.pdf

Environments

There are some environment and precedence differences. For example, assignment with = is only done on a functional level, whereas <- does it on the top level when called inside as a function argument.

In the first code, you’re passing x as the parameter of the median function, whereas the second one is creating a variable x in the environment, and uses it as the first argument of median . Note that it works because x is the name of the parameter of the function, and won’t work with y :

There is also a difference in parsing when it comes to both these operators (but I guess this never happens in the real world), one failing and not the other:

It is also good practice because it clearly indicates the difference between function arguments and assignation:

And this weird behavior:

Little bit unrelated but

I love this one:

Which of course is not doable with = .

Other operators

Some users pointed out on Twitter that this could make the code a little bit harder to read if you come from another language. <- is use “only” use in F#, OCaml, R and S (as far as Wikipedia can tell). Even if <- is rare in programming, I guess its meaning is quite easy to grasp, though.

Note that the second most used assignment operator is := ( = being the most common). It’s used in {data.table} and {rlang} notably. The := operator is not defined in the current R language, but has not been removed, and is still understood by the R parser. You can’t use it on the top level:

But as it is still understood by the parser, you can use := as an infix without any %%, for assignment, or for anything else:

You can see that := was used as an assignment operator https://developer.r-project.org/equalAssign.html :

All the previously allowed assignment operators (

Or in R NEWS 1:

Around 29’: https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/useR-international-R-User-conference/useR2016/Forty-years-of-S
What are the differences between “=” and “
Assignment Operators

To leave a comment for the author, please follow the link and comment on their blog: Colin Fay . R-bloggers.com offers daily e-mail updates about R news and tutorials about learning R and many other topics. Click here if you're looking to post or find an R/data-science job . Want to share your content on R-bloggers? click here if you have a blog, or here if you don't.

Never miss an update! Subscribe to R-bloggers to receive e-mails with the latest R posts. (You will not see this message again.)

COMMENTS

Assignment Operators in R (3 Examples)
On this page you'll learn how to apply the different assignment operators in the R programming language. The content of the article is structured as follows: 1) Example 1: Why You Should Use ＜- Instead of = in R. 2) Example 2: When ＜- is Really Different Compared to =. 3) Example 3: The Difference Between ＜- and ＜＜-. 4) Video ...
r
@ClarkThomborson The semantics are fundamentally different because in R assignment is a regular operation which is performed via a function call to an assignment function. However, this is not the case for = in an argument list. In an argument list, = is an arbitrary separator token which is no longer present after parsing. After parsing f(x = 1), R sees (essentially) call("f", 1).
R: Assignment Operators
Details. There are three different assignment operators: two of them have leftwards and rightwards forms. The operators <-and = assign into the environment in which they are evaluated. The operator <-can be used anywhere, whereas the operator = is only allowed at the top level (e.g., in the complete expression typed at the command prompt) or as one of the subexpressions in a braced list of ...
R Operators (With Examples)
The above mentioned operators work on vectors. The variables used above were in fact single element vectors. We can use the function c() (as in concatenate) to make vectors in R. All operations are carried out in element-wise fashion. Here is an example. x <- c(2, 8, 3) y <- c(6, 4, 1) x + y. x > y.
R Operators [Arithmetic, Logical, ... With Examples]
R operators. There are several operators in R, such that arithmetic operators for math calculations, logical, relational or assignment operators or even the popular pipe operator. In this tutorial we will show you the R operators divided into operator types. In addition, we will show examples of use of every operator.
assignOps: Assignment Operators
There are three different assignment operators: two of them have leftwards and rightwards forms. The operators <- and = assign into the environment in which they are evaluated. The operator <- can be used anywhere, whereas the operator = is only allowed at the top level (e.g., in the complete expression typed at the command prompt) or as one of ...
Difference between assignment operators in R
For R beginners, the first operator they use is probably the assignment operator <-.Google's R Style Guide suggests the usage of <-rather than = even though the equal sign is also allowed in R to do exactly the same thing when we assign a value to a variable. However, you might feel inconvenient because you need to type two characters to represent one symbol, which is different from many other ...
Assignment & Evaluation · UC Business Analytics R Programming Guide
The original assignment operator in R was <-and has continued to be the preferred among R users. The = assignment operator was added in 2001 primarily because it is the accepted assignment operator in many other languages and beginners to R coming from other languages were so prone to use it. However, R uses = to associate function arguments with values (i.e. f(x = 3) explicitly means to call ...
Assignment Operators in R
R has five common assignment operators: <-. ->. <<-. ->>. =. Many style guides and traditionalists prefer the left arrow operator, <-. Why use that when it's an extra keystroke? <- always means assignment. The equal sign is overloaded a bit taking on the roles of an assignment operator, function argument binding, or depending on the context ...
R: Multiple assignment operators
At its simplest, the name structure may be a single variable name, in which case %<-% and %->% perform regular assignment, x. %<-% list(1, 2, 3) or list(1, 2, 3) %->% x . To specify multiple variable names use a call to c(), for example c(x, y, z) %<-% c(1, 2, 3) . When value is neither an atomic vector nor a list, %<-% and %->% will try to ...
R Operators
Assignment Operators in R are used to assigning values to various data objects in R. The objects may be integers, vectors, or functions. These values are then stored by the assigned variable names. There are two kinds of assignment operators: Left and Right. Left Assignment (<- or <<- or =) Assigns a value to a vector.
Assignment operators in R: '=' vs.
The Google R style guide prohibits the use of "=" for assignment. Hadley Wickham's style guide recommends "<-". If you want your code to be compatible with S-plus you should use "<-". I believe that the General R community recommend using "<-", but I can't find anything on the mailing list. However, I tend always use the ...
Assignment operators
Assignment operators. You can assign values or functions to R objects using <- operator. x <- 3 # assign 3 to 'x' x.
Global vs. local assignment operators in R
First, let's create two variables named "global_var" and "local_var" and give them the values "global" and "local", respectively. Notice we are using the standard assignment operator "<-" for both variables. Next, let's create a function to test out the global assignment operator ("<<-"). Inside this function, we ...
Assignment operators in R: '<-' and '<<-'
7. <- assigns an object to the environment in which it is evaluated (local scope). <<- assigns an object to the next highest environment that the name is found in or the global namespace if no name is found. See the documentation here. <<- is usually only used in functions, but be careful. <<- can be much harder to debug because it is harder to ...
6 Life-Altering RStudio Keyboard Shortcuts
This article is part of a R-Tips Weekly, a weekly video tutorial that shows you step-by-step how to do common R coding tasks. ... Insert The Assignment Operator [Alt + -] My code has tons of assignment operators. This is a simple, time-saver that will make you more productive in building functions and assigning variables values. 4: Cursor ...
The Assignment Operator in R: Does
R has several assignment operators. Per the documentation. The operator <-can be used anywhere, whereas the operator = is only allowed at the top level (e.g., in the complete expression typed at the command prompt) or as one of the subexpressions in a braced list of expressions.. The only place I am aware of where you must use the <-operator is naming items of a list in attach.
R Operators
R Arithmetic Operators. Arithmetic operators are used with numeric values to perform common mathematical operations: Operator Name Example ... It is also possible to turn the direction of the assignment operator. x <- 3 is equal to 3 -> x. R Comparison Operators. Comparison operators are used to compare two values: Operator Name Example
Why do we use arrow as an assignment operator?
Until 2001, in R, = could only be used for assigning function arguments, like fun(foo = "bar") (remember that R was born in 1993). So before 2001, the <-was the standard (and only way) to assign value into a variable. Before that, _ was also a valid assignment operator. It was removed in R 1.8:
What is the R assignment operator := for?
The development version of R now allows some assignments to be written C- or Java-style, using the = operator. This increases compatibility with S-Plus (as well as with C, Java, and many other languages). All the previously allowed assignment operators (<-, :=, _, and <<-) remain fully in effect. It seems the := function is no longer present ...
Why are there two assignment operators, `<-` and `->` in R?
2. Another point is that <- makes it easier keep track of object names. If you're writing expressions that end in -> for assignment, your object names will be horizontally scattered, where as consistently using <- means each object name can be predictably located. - Mako212. Jul 26, 2018 at 22:53.

Assignment Operators in R (3 Examples) | Comparing = vs. ＜- vs. ＜＜-

Example 1: Why You Should Use ＜- Instead of = in R

Example 2: When ＜- is Really Different Compared to =

Example 3: The Difference Between ＜- and ＜＜-

Video & Further Resources

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Statistics Globe Newsletter

Related Tutorials

Change Default Time Zone in R (2 Examples)

How to Compute Euler’s Number in R (Example)

Assignment Operators

Popular Tutorials

R Operators

R Flow Control

R Data Structures

R Object & Class

R Graphs & Charts

R Advanced Topics

Related Topics

Table of Contents

R Tutorials

R operators

Arithmetic operators

Logical / boolean operators

Relational / comparison operators in R

Assignment operators in R

Reserved words

Miscellaneous R operators

Infix operator

Pipe operator in R

assignOps: Assignment Operators

R Package Documentation

UC Business Analytics R Programming Guide

Assignment Operators in R – Which One to Use and Where

Assignment Operators

Equal or “arrow” as an Assignment Operator?

History of the <- Operator

Share this:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Multiple assignment operators

Name Structure

Data Visualization

Packages in R

Introduction

Fundamentals of R

R Operators

Input/Output

Control Flow

Data Structures

Object Oriented Programming

Error Handling

File Handling

Data Interfaces

Machine Learning

R Operators

Arithmetic Operators

Addition operator (+)

Subtraction Operator (-)

Multiplication Operator (*)

Division Operator (/)

Power Operator (^)

Modulo Operator (%%)

Element-wise Logical AND operator (&)

Element-wise Logical OR operator (|)

NOT operator (!)

Logical AND operator (&&)

Logical OR operator (||)

Less than (<)

Less than equal to (<=)

Greater than (>)

Greater than equal to (>=)

Not equal to (!=)

Left Assignment (<- or <<- or =)

Right Assignment (-> or ->>)

%in% Operator

%*% Operator

Please Login to comment...

What kind of Experience do you want to share?

Introduction to R

R Data Structures