Control Statements

Looping is similiar to creating functions in that they are merely a means to automate a certain multi step process by organizing sequences of R expressions. R consists of several loop control statements which allow you to perform repetititve code processes with different intentions and allow these automated expressions to naturally respond to features of your data. Consequently, learning these loop control statements will go a long ways in reducing code redundancy and becoming a more efficient data wrangler.

if statement for conditional programming
if...else statement for conditional programming
for loop to iterate over a fixed number of iterations
while loop to iterate until a logical statement returns FALSE
repeat loop to execute until told to break
break/next arguments to exit and skip interations in a loop

`if` statement

The conditional if statement is used to test an expression. If the test_expression is TRUE, the statement gets executed. But if it’s FALSE, nothing happens.

# syntax of if statement
if (test_expression) {
        statement
}

The following is an example that tests if any values in a vector are negative. Notice there are two ways to write this if statement; since the body of the statement is only one line you can write it with or without curly braces. I recommend getting in the habit of using curly braces, that way if you build onto if statements with additional functions in the body or add an else statement later you will not run into issues with unexpected code procedures.

x <- c(8, 3, -2, 5)

# without curly braces
if(any(x < 0)) print("x contains negative numbers")
## [1] "x contains negative numbers"

# with curly braces produces same result
if(any(x < 0)){
        print("x contains negative numbers")
}
## [1] "x contains negative numbers"

# an if statement in which the test expression is FALSE
# does not produce any output
y <- c(8, 3, 2, 5)

if(any(y < 0)){
        print("y contains negative numbers")
}

`if...else` statement

The conditional if...else statement is used to test an expression similar to the if statement. However, rather than nothing happening if the test_expression is FALSE, the else part of the function will be evaluated.

# syntax of if...else statement
if (test_expression) {
        statement 1
} else {
        statement 2
}

The following extends the previous example illustrated for the if statement in which the if statement tests if any values in a vector are negative; if TRUE it produces one output and if FALSE it produces the else output.

# this test results in statement 1 being executed
x <- c(8, 3, -2, 5)

if(any(x < 0)){
        print("x contains negative numbers")
} else{
        print("x contains all positive numbers")
}
## [1] "x contains negative numbers"

# this test results in statement 2 (or the else statement) being executed
y <- c(8, 3, 2, 5)

if(any(y < 0)){
        print("y contains negative numbers")
} else{
        print("y contains all positive numbers")
}
## [1] "y contains all positive numbers"

Simple if...else statements, as above, in which only one line of code is being executed in the statements can be written in a simplified alternative manner. These alternatives are only recommended for very short if...else code:

x <- c(8, 3, 2, 5)

# alternative 1
if(any(x < 0)) print("x contains negative numbers") else print("x contains all positive numbers")
## [1] "x contains all positive numbers"

# alternative 2 using the ifelse function
ifelse(any(x < 0), "x contains negative numbers", "x contains all positive numbers")
## [1] "x contains all positive numbers"

We can also nest as many if...else statements as required (or desired). For example:

# this test results in statement 1 being executed
x <- 7

if(x >= 10){
        print("x exceeds acceptable tolerance levels")
} else if(x >= 0 & x < 10){
        print("x is within acceptable tolerance levels")
} else {
         print("x is negative")
}
## [1] "x is within acceptable tolerance levels"

`for` loop

The for loop is used to execute repetitive code statements for a particular number of times. The general syntax is provided below where i is the counter and as i assumes each sequential value defined (1 through 100 in this example) the code in the body will be performed for that ith value.

# syntax of for loop
for(i in 1:100) {
        <do stuff here with i>
}

For example, the following for loop iterates through each value (2010, 2011, …, 2016) and performs the paste and print functions inside the curly brackets.

for (i in 2010:2016){
        output <- paste("The year is", i)
        print(output)
}
## [1] "The year is 2010"
## [1] "The year is 2011"
## [1] "The year is 2012"
## [1] "The year is 2013"
## [1] "The year is 2014"
## [1] "The year is 2015"
## [1] "The year is 2016"

If you want to perform the for loop but have the outputs combined into a vector or other data structure than you can initiate the output data structure prior to the for loop. For instance, if we want to have the previous outputs combined into a single vector x we can initiate x first and then append the for loop output to x.

x <- NULL

for (i in 2010:2016){
        output <- paste("The year is", i)
        x <- append(x, output)
}

x
## [1] "The year is 2010" "The year is 2011" "The year is 2012" "The year is 2013"
## [5] "The year is 2014" "The year is 2015" "The year is 2016"

However, an important lesson to learn is that R is not efficient at growing data objects. As a result, it is more efficient to create an empty data object and fill it with the for loop outputs. In the previous example we grew x by appending new values to it. A more efficient practice is to initiate a vector (or other data structure) of the right size and fill the elements. In the example that follows, we create the vector x of the right size and then fill in each element within the for loop. Although this inefficiency is not noticed in this small example, when you perform larger repetitions it will become noticable so you might as well get in the habit of filling rather than growing.

x <- vector(mode = "numeric", length = 7)
counter <- 1

for (i in 2010:2016){
        output <- paste("The year is", i)
        x[counter] <- output
        counter <- counter + 1
}

x
## [1] "The year is 2010" "The year is 2011" "The year is 2012" "The year is 2013"
## [5] "The year is 2014" "The year is 2015" "The year is 2016"

Another example in which we create an empty matrix with 5 rows and 5 columns. The for loop then iterates over each column (note how i takes on the values 1 through the number of columns in the my.mat matrix) and takes a random draw of 5 values from a poisson distribution with mean i in column i:

my.mat <- matrix(NA, nrow = 5, ncol = 5)

for(i in 1:ncol(my.mat)){
        my.mat[, i] <- rpois(5, lambda = i)
}
my.mat
##      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]
## [1,]    0    2    1    7    1
## [2,]    1    2    2    3    9
## [3,]    2    1    5    6    6
## [4,]    2    1    5    2   10
## [5,]    0    2    2    2    4

`while` loop

While loops begin by testing a condition. If it is true, then they execute the statement. Once the statement is executed, the condition is tested again, and so forth, until the condition is false, after which the loop exits. It’s considered a best practice to include a counter object to keep track of total iterations

# syntax of while loop
counter <- 1

while(test_expression) {
        statement
        counter <- counter + 1
}

while loops can potentially result in infinite loops if not written properly; therefore, you must use them with care. To provide a simple example to illustrate how similiar for and while loops are:

counter <- 1

while(counter <= 10) {
        print(counter)
        counter <- counter + 1
}

# this for loop provides the same output
counter <- vector(mode = "numeric", length = 10)

for(i in 1:length(counter)) {
        print(i)
}

The primary difference between a for loop and a while loop is: a for loop is used when the number of iterations a code should be run is known where a while loop is used when the number of iterations is not known. For instance, the following takes value x and adds or subtracts 1 from the value randomly until x exceeds the values in the test expression. The output illustrates that the code runs 14 times until x exceeded the threshold with the value 9.

counter <- 1
x <- 5
set.seed(3)

while(x >= 3 && x <= 8 ) {
        coin <- rbinom(1, 1, 0.5)
        
        if(coin == 1) { ## random walk
                x <- x + 1
        } else {
                x <- x - 1
        }
        cat("On iteration", counter, ", x =", x, '\n')
        counter <- counter + 1
}
## On iteration 1 , x = 4 
## On iteration 2 , x = 5 
## On iteration 3 , x = 4 
## On iteration 4 , x = 3 
## On iteration 5 , x = 4 
## On iteration 6 , x = 5 
## On iteration 7 , x = 4 
## On iteration 8 , x = 3 
## On iteration 9 , x = 4 
## On iteration 10 , x = 5 
## On iteration 11 , x = 6 
## On iteration 12 , x = 7 
## On iteration 13 , x = 8 
## On iteration 14 , x = 9

`repeat` loop

A repeat loop is used to iterate over a block of code multiple number of times. There is test expression in a repeat loop to end or exit the loop. Rather, we must put a condition statement explicitly inside the body of the loop and use the break function to exit the loop. Failing to do so will result into an infinite loop.

# syntax of repeat loop
counter <- 1

repeat {
        statement
        
        if(test_expression){
                break
        }
        counter <- counter + 1
}

For example ,say we want to randomly draw values from a uniform distribution between 1 and 25. Furthermore, we want to continue to draw values randomly until our sample contains at least each integer value between 1 and 25; however, we do not care if we’ve drawn a particular value multiple times. The following code repeats the random draws of values between 1 and 25 (in which we round). We then include an if statement to check if all values between 1 and 25 are present in our sample. If so, we use the break statement to exit the loop. If not, we add to our counter and let the loop repeat until the conditional if statement is found to be true. We can then check the counter object to assess how many iterations were required to reach our conditional requirement.

counter <- 1
x <- NULL

repeat {
        x <- c(x, round(runif(1, min = 1, max = 25)))
        
        if(all(1:25 %in% x)){
                break
        }
                
        counter <- counter + 1
}

counter
## [1] 75

`break`/`next` arguments

The break argument is used to exit a loop immediately, regardless of what iteration the loop may be on. break arguments are typically embedded in an if statement in which a condition is assessed, if TRUE break out of the loop, if FALSE continue on with the loop. In a nested looping situation, where there is a loop inside another loop, this statement exits from the innermost loop that is being evaluated.

In this example, the for loop will iterate for each element in x; however, when it gets to the element that equals 3 it will break out and end the for loop process.

x <- 1:5

for (i in x) {
        if (i == 3){
                break
                }
        print(i)
}
## [1] 1
## [1] 2

The next argument is useful when we want to skip the current iteration of a loop without terminating it. On encountering next, the R parser skips further evaluation and starts the next iteration of the loop. In this example, the for loop will iterate for each element in x; however, when it gets to the element that equals 3 it will skip the for loop execution of printing the element and simply jump to the next iteration.

x <- 1:5

for (i in x) {
        if (i == 3){
                next
                }
        print(i)
}
## [1] 1
## [1] 2
## [1] 4
## [1] 5

AFIT Data Science Lab R Programming Guide

Control Statements

if statement

if...else statement

for loop

while loop