This chapter provides you with a broad overview of the ways to get information into as well as out of the R environment. There are various packages that are available and related to this important function, but we will focus on a subset of the basic, built-in functions. The chapter is divided into the following five sections:
File and directory information: This section gives you a brief overview of how files and directories are organized in the R environment
Input: This section gives you an overview of the methods that can be used to bring data into the R environment
Output: This section gives you an overview of the methods available to get data out of the R environment
Primitive input/output: This section gives you an overview of the methods you can use to write data in binary or character forms in predefined formats
Network options: This section gives you a brief overview of the methods associated with creating and manipulating sockets