What is the difference between is.vector() and is.numeric() functions?

Question

我是 R 的新手，我想知道是否有人可以解释is.vector()和is.numeric()之间的区别。

Answer 1

is.numeric is a general test to check whether a vector is numeric or not. It will return TRUE only if the object passed to it is a vector and consists of only numeric data. Whereas, is.vector tests whether the object is a vector or not. It will return TRUE if the object passed is a vector.

Answer 2

is.numeric returns true if the base type of the class is double or integer and when values can reasonably be regarded as numeric. (they should be eligible for arithmetic operations and comparable by their base class)

For any values enclosed in a vector being numeric, (integer and floating-point/decimal values) is.numeric triggers as TRUE .

Whereas is.vector checks the class of your object, whether it falls under the conditions of being a vector. Vectors include different variants pertaining to the type of its contents, which can be numeric (strictly numbers inclusive of decimal values) or character or logical (having boolean values TRUE or FALSE ) or the vector can be raw or complex as well. (You can check the type of vector using typeof() function)

The distinction is clear as for character values or boolean values in your vector, is.numeric would return FALSE as opposed to a TRUE for is.vector .

If you were to test the same for data frames instead of vectors, the question would arise between isNumeric and is.data.frame .