In this chapter, we examined the basic data structures available to help organize data. These data structures include vectors, lists, data frames, tables, and arrays. We examined some of the ways to manage the data structures using the rbind and cbind commands. Finally, we examined some of the methods available to perform calculations on the data within the data structure and examined the various functions available to apply commands to parts of the data within the data structure.

In the next chapter, we will build on these ideas and examine how to get information from a data file and into the various data structures. We will also examine the methods available to produce formatted output to display the results of calculations on data.