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Have a look at the structure

Another method that is often used to get a rapid overview of your data is the function str(). The function str() shows you the structure of your dataset. For a data frame it tells you:

  • The total number of observations (e.g. 32 car types)
  • The total number of variables (e.g. 11 car features)
  • A full list of the variables names (e.g. mpg, cyl … )
  • The data type of each variable (e.g. num)
  • The first observations

Applying the str()] function will often be the first thing that you do when receiving a new dataset or data frame. It is a great way to get more insight in your dataset before diving into the real analysis.

This is a part of the course

“Introduction to R”

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Exercise instructions

Investigate the structure of mtcars. Make sure that you see the same numbers, variables and data types as mentioned above.

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

# Investigate the structure of mtcars
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