R Project

Today we will discuss the use of Projects in R.

Why would one use a Project to manage R code?

I have always used R scripts to write my R code. This works fine but using a Rnotebook is nicer.

There is a problem with R that it uses a shared envioronment. So if you are working with a number of R scripts you might run into problems because different scripts might use the same variable name for different objects. This will cause problems.

When you use R there is a hidden file called .RData. In this file all of the R objects are stored. It would be a good idea to have different .RData files for each R program you are working on.

These are the reasons for creating R Projects to manage your R scripts, R notebooks and .RData files.

To create a Project you can File > New Project or click the Project button on the upper right. You will be asked if it is a New Project you want to create or whether you want to open an existing Project.

Once you create a project in a directory there is a Project.Rproj file created in the directory where you will save your R Project. After this all of the files you create are stored in that directory.

This is a much better way to manage R scripts over using the setwd() function in R.

Give the creation of a Project a try. And then close it.