S Programming (eBook)

S is a high-level language for manipulating, analysing and displayingdata. It forms the basis of two highly acclaimed and widely used dataanalysis software systems, the commercial S-PLUS and the OpenSource R. This book provides an in-depth guide to writing software inthe S language under either or both of those systems. It is intendedfor readers who have some acquaintance with the S language and want toknow how to use it more effectively, for example to build re-usabletools for streamlining routine data analysis or to implement newstatistical methods.One of the outstanding strengths of the S language is the ease withwhich it can be extended by users. S is a functional language, andfunctions written by users are first-class objects treated in the sameway as functions provided by the system. S code is eminently readableand so a good way to document precisely what algorithms were used, andas much of the implementations are themselves written in S, they can bestudied as models and to understand their subtleties. The currentimplementations also provide easy ways for S functions to callcompiled code written in C, Fortran and similar languages; this isdocumented here in depth.Increasingly S is being used for statistical or graphical analysiswithin larger software systems or for whole vertical-marketapplications. The interface facilities are most developed onWindows and these are covered with worked examples.The authors have written the widely used Modern Applied Statisticswith S-PLUS, now in its third edition, and several software librariesthat enhance S-PLUS and R; these and the examples used in both booksare available on the Internet.Dr. W.N. Venables is a senior Statistician with theCSIRO/CMISEnvironmetrics Project in Australia, having been at the Department ofStatistics, University of Adelaide for many years previously.Professor B.D. Ripley holds the Chair of Applied Statistics at theUniversity of Oxford, and is the author of four other books on spatialstatistics, simulation, pattern recognition and neural networks. Bothauthors are known and respected throughout the international S and Rcommunities, for their books, workshops, short courses, freelyavailable software and through their extensive contributions to theS-news and R mailing lists.