JavaScript Question: How Do I Find and Extract a Value from an Array?

JavaScript arrays have a wealth of methods that can be used for working with them. In this tutorial we will look at one of those methods. Find can be used for locating and extracting values from an array.

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What Is R Programming Language? introduction & Basics

In this R article, we will learn about What Is R Programming Language? introduction & Basics. R is a programming language developed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman in 1993. R possesses an extensive catalog of statistical and graphical methods. It includes machine learning algorithms, linear regression, time series, statistical inference to name a few. Most of the R libraries are written in R, but for heavy computational tasks, C, C++, and Fortran codes are preferred.

Data analysis with R is done in a series of steps; programming, transforming, discovering, modeling and communicating the results

• Program: R is a clear and accessible programming tool
• Transform: R is made up of a collection of libraries designed specifically for data science
• Discover: Investigate the data, refine your hypothesis and analyze them
• Model: R provides a wide array of tools to capture the right model for your data
• Communicate: Integrate codes, graphs, and outputs to a report with R Markdown or build Shiny apps to share with the world.

What is R used for?

• Statistical inference
• Data analysis
• Machine learning algorithm

As conclusion, R is the world’s most widely used statistics programming language. It’s the 1st choice of data scientists and supported by a vibrant and talented community of contributors. R is taught in universities and deployed in mission-critical business applications.

R-environment setup

Windows Installation – We can download the Windows installer version of R from R-3.2.2 for windows (32/64)
 

As it is a Windows installer (.exe) with the name “R-version-win.exe”. You can just double click and run the installer accepting the default settings. If your Windows is a 32-bit version, it installs the 32-bit version. But if your windows are 64-bit, then it installs both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

After installation, you can locate the icon to run the program in a directory structure “R\R3.2.2\bin\i386\Rgui.exe” under the Windows Program Files. Clicking this icon brings up the R-GUI which is the R console to do R Programming. 
 

R basic Syntax

R Programming is a very popular programming language that is broadly used in data analysis. The way in which we define its code is quite simple. The “Hello World!” is the basic program for all the languages, and now we will understand the syntax of R programming with the “Hello world” program. We can write our code either in the command prompt, or we can use an R script file.

R command prompt

Once you have R environment setup, then it’s easy to start your R command prompt by just typing the following command at your command prompt −
$R
This will launch R interpreter and you will get a prompt > where you can start typing your program as follows −
 

>myString <- "Hello, World"
>print (myString)
[1] "Hello, World!"

Here the first statement defines a string variable myString, where we assign a string “Hello, World!” and then the next statement print() is being used to print the value stored in myString variable.

R data-types

While doing programming in any programming language, you need to use various variables to store various information. Variables are nothing but reserved memory locations to store values. This means that when you create a variable you reserve some space in memory.

In contrast to other programming languages like C and java in R, the variables are not declared as some data type. The variables are assigned with R-Objects and the data type of the R-object becomes the data type of the variable. There are many types of R-objects. The frequently used ones are −

• Vectors
• Lists
• Matrices
• Arrays
• Factors
• Data Frames

Vectors

#create a vector and find the elements which are >5
v<-c(1,2,3,4,5,6,5,8)
v[v>5]

#subset
subset(v,v>5)

#position in the vector created in which square of the numbers of v is >10 holds good
which(v*v>10)

#to know the values 
v[v*v>10]

Output: [1] 6 8 Output: [1] 6 8 Output: [1] 4 5 6 7 8 Output: [1] 4 5 6 5 8

Matrices

A matrix is a two-dimensional rectangular data set. It can be created using a vector input to the matrix function.

#matrices: a vector with two dimensional attributes
mat<-matrix(c(1,2,3,4))
 
mat1<-matrix(c(1,2,3,4),nrow=2)
mat1

Output:     [,1] [,2] [1,]    1    3 [2,]    2    4

mat2<-matrix(c(1,2,3,4),ncol=2,byrow=T)
mat2

Output:       [,1] [,2] [1,]    1    2 [2,]    3    4

mat3<-matrix(c(1,2,3,4),byrow=T)
mat3

#transpose of matrix
mattrans<-t(mat)
mattrans

#create a character matrix called fruits with elements apple, orange, pear, grapes
fruits<-matrix(c("apple","orange","pear","grapes"),2)
#create 3×4 matrix of marks obtained in each quarterly exams for 4 different subjects 
X<-matrix(c(50,70,40,90,60, 80,50, 90,100, 50,30, 70),nrow=3)
X

#give row names and column names
rownames(X)<-paste(prefix="Test.",1:3)
subs<-c("Maths", "English", "Science", "History")
colnames(X)<-subs
X

Output:       [,1]  [1,]    1  [2,]    2  [3,]    3  [4,]    4 Output:      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]  [1,]    1    2    3    4 Output:      [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]  [1,]   50   90   50   50  [2,]   70   60   90   30  [3,]   40   80  100   70 Output:   Maths English Science History  Test. 1    50      90      50      50  Test. 2    70      60      90      30  Test. 3    40      80     100      70

Arrays

While matrices are confined to two dimensions, arrays can be of any number of dimensions. The array function takes a dim attribute which creates the required number of dimensions. In the below example we create an array with two elements which are 3×3 matrices each.

#Arrays
arr<-array(1:24,dim=c(3,4,2))
arr

#create an array using alphabets with dimensions 3 rows, 2 columns and 3 arrays
arr1<-array(letters[1:18],dim=c(3,2,3))

#select only 1st two matrix of an array
arr1[,,c(1:2)]

#LIST
X<-list(u=2, n='abc')
X
X$u

 [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]

 [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4]

 [,1] [,2]

 [,1] [,2]

Dataframes

Data frames are tabular data objects. Unlike a matrix in a data frame, each column can contain different modes of data. The first column can be numeric while the second column can be character and the third column can be logical. It is a list of vectors of equal length.

#Dataframes
students<-c("J","L","M","K","I","F","R","S")
Subjects<-rep(c("science","maths"),each=2)
marks<-c(55,70,66,85,88,90,56,78)
data<-data.frame(students,Subjects,marks)
#Accessing dataframes
data[[1]]

data$Subjects
data[,1]

Output: [1] J L M K I F R S Levels: F I J K L M R S Output:   data$Subjects   [1] science science maths   maths   science science maths   maths     Levels: maths science 

Factors

Factors are the r-objects which are created using a vector. It stores the vector along with the distinct values of the elements in the vector as labels. The labels are always character irrespective of whether it is numeric or character or Boolean etc. in the input vector. They are useful in statistical modeling.

Factors are created using the factor() function. The nlevels function gives the count of levels.

#Factors
x<-c(1,2,3)
factor(x)

#apply function
data1<-data.frame(age=c(55,34,42,66,77),bmi=c(26,25,21,30,22))
d<-apply(data1,2,mean)
d

#create two vectors age and gender and find mean age with respect to gender
age<-c(33,34,55,54)
gender<-factor(c("m","f","m","f"))
tapply(age,gender,mean)

Output: [1] 1 2 3 Levels: 1 2 3 Output:  age  bmi 54.8 24.8 Output:  f  m         44 44

R Variables

A variable provides us with named storage that our programs can manipulate. A variable in R can store an atomic vector, a group of atomic vectors, or a combination of many R objects. A valid variable name consists of letters, numbers, and the dot or underlines characters.

Rules for writing Identifiers in R

1. Identifiers can be a combination of letters, digits, period (.), and underscore (_).
2. It must start with a letter or a period. If it starts with a period, it cannot be followed by a digit.
3. Reserved words in R cannot be used as identifiers.

Valid identifiers in R

total, sum, .fine.with.dot, this_is_acceptable, Number5

Invalid identifiers in R

tot@l, 5um, _fine, TRUE, .0ne

Best Practices

Earlier versions of R used underscore (_) as an assignment operator. So, the period (.) was used extensively in variable names having multiple words. Current versions of R support underscore as a valid identifier but it is good practice to use a period as word separators.
For example, a.variable.name is preferred over a_variable_name or alternatively we could use camel case as aVariableName.

Constants in R

Constants, as the name suggests, are entities whose value cannot be altered. Basic types of constant are numeric constants and character constants.

Numeric Constants

All numbers fall under this category. They can be of type integer, double or complex. It can be checked with the typeof() function.
Numeric Constants followed by L are regarded as integers and those followed by i are regarded as complex.

> typeof(5)
> typeof(5L)
> typeof(5L)

[1] “double” [1] “double” [[1] “double”

Character Constants

Character constants can be represented using either single quotes (‘) or double quotes (“) as delimiters.

> 'example'
> typeof("5")

[1] "example" [1] "character"

R Operators

Operators – Arithmetic, Relational, Logical, Assignment, and some of the Miscellaneous Operators that R programming language provides. 

There are four main categories of Operators in the R programming language.

1. Arithmetic Operators
2. Relational Operators
3. Logical Operators
4. Assignment Operators
5. Mixed Operators

x <- 35
y<-10

   x+y       > x-y     > x*y       > x/y      > x%/%y     > x%%y   > x^y   [1] 45      [1] 25    [1] 350    [1] 3.5      [1] 3      [1] 5 [1]2.75e+15 

Logical Operators

The below table shows the logical operators in R. Operators & and | perform element-wise operation producing result having a length of the longer operand. But && and || examines only the first element of the operands resulting in a single length logical vector.

a <- c(TRUE,TRUE,FALSE,0,6,7)
b <- c(FALSE,TRUE,FALSE,TRUE,TRUE,TRUE)
a&b 
[1] FALSE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE
a&&b
[1] FALSE
> a|b
[1] TRUE TRUE FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE
> a||b
[1] TRUE
> !a
[1] FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE
> !b
[1] TRUE FALSE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE

R functions

Functions are defined using the function() directive and are stored as R objects just like anything else. In particular, they are R objects of class “function”. Here’s a simple function that takes no arguments simply prints ‘Hi statistics’.

#define the function
f <- function() {
print("Hi statistics!!!")
}
#Call the function
f()

Output: [1] "Hi statistics!!!"

Now let’s define a function called standardize, and the function has a single argument x which is used in the body of a function.

#Define the function that will calculate standardized score.
standardize = function(x) {
m = mean(x)
sd = sd(x)
result = (x – m) / sd
result
}
input<- c(40:50) #Take input for what we want to calculate a standardized score.
standardize(input) #Call the function

Output:   standardize(input) #Call the function   [1] -1.5075567 -1.2060454 -0.9045340 -0.6030227 -0.3015113 0.0000000 0.3015113 0.6030227 0.9045340 1.2060454 1.5075567 

Loop Functions

R has some very useful functions which implement looping in a compact form to make life easier. The very rich and powerful family of applied functions is made of intrinsically vectorized functions. These functions in R allow you to apply some function to a series of objects (eg. vectors, matrices, data frames, or files). They include:

1. lapply(): Loop over a list and evaluate a function on each element
2. sapply(): Same as lapply but try to simplify the result
3. apply(): Apply a function over the margins of an array
4. tapply(): Apply a function over subsets of a vector
5. mapply(): Multivariate version of lapply

There is another function called split() which is also useful, particularly in conjunction with lapply.

R Vectors

A vector is a sequence of data elements of the same basic type. Members in a vector are officially called components. Vectors are the most basic R data objects and there are six types of atomic vectors. They are logical, integer, double, complex, character, and raw.

The c() function can be used to create vectors of objects by concatenating things together. 
x <- c(1,2,3,4,5) #double
x #If you use only x auto-printing occurs
l <- c(TRUE, FALSE) #logical
l <- c(T, F) ## logical
c <- c("a", "b", "c", "d") ## character
i <- 1:20 ## integer
cm <- c(2+2i, 3+3i) ## complex
print(l)
print(c)
print(i)
print(cm)

You can see the type of each vector using typeof() function in R.
typeof(x)
typeof(l)
typeof(c)
typeof(i)
typeof(cm)

Output: print(l) [1] TRUE FALSE   print(c)   [1] "a" "b" "c" "d"   print(i)   [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20   print(cm)   [1] 2+2i 3+3i Output: typeof(x) [1] "double"   typeof(l)   [1] "logical"   typeof(c)   [1] "character"   typeof(i)   [1] "integer"   typeof(cm)   [1] "complex" 

Creating a vector using seq() function:

We can use the seq() function to create a vector within an interval by specifying step size or specifying the length of the vector. 

seq(1:10) #By default it will be incremented by 1
seq(1, 20, length.out=5) # specify length of the vector
seq(1, 20, by=2) # specify step size

Output: > seq(1:10) #By default it will be incremented by 1 [1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > seq(1, 20, length.out=5) # specify length of the vector [1] 1.00 5.75 10.50 15.25 20.00 > seq(1, 20, by=2) # specify step size [1] 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19

Extract Elements from a Vector:

Elements of a vector can be accessed using indexing. The vector indexing can be logical, integer, or character. The [ ] brackets are used for indexing. Indexing starts with position 1, unlike most programming languages where indexing starts from 0.

Extract Using Integer as Index:

We can use integers as an index to access specific elements. We can also use negative integers to return all elements except that specific element.

x<- 101:110
x[1]   #access the first element
x[c(2,3,4,5)] #Extract 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th elements
x[5:10]        #Extract all elements from 5th to 10th
x[c(-5,-10)] #Extract all elements except 5th and 10th
x[-c(5:10)] #Extract all elements except from 5th to 10th 

Output:   x[1] #Extract the first element   [1] 101   x[c(2,3,4,5)] #Extract 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th elements   [1] 102 103 104 105   x[5:10] #Extract all elements from 5th to 10th   [1] 105 106 107 108 109 110   x[c(-5,-10)] #Extract all elements except 5th and 10th   [1] 101 102 103 104 106 107 108 109   x[-c(5:10)] #Extract all elements except from 5th to 10th   [1] 101 102 103 104 

Extract Using Logical Vector as Index:

If you use a logical vector for indexing, the position where the logical vector is TRUE will be returned.

x[x < 105]
x[x>=104]

Output:   x[x < 105] [1] 101 102 103 104 x[x>=104]   [1] 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 

Modify a Vector in R:

We can modify a vector and assign a new value to it. You can truncate a vector by using reassignments. Check the below example. 

x<- 10:12
x[1]<- 101 #Modify the first element
x
x[2]<-102 #Modify the 2nd element
x
x<- x[1:2] #Truncate the last element
x 

Output:   x   [1] 101 11 12   x[2]<-102 #Modify the 2nd element   x   [1] 101 102 12   x<- x[1:2] #Truncate the last element   x   [1] 101 102 

Arithmetic Operations on Vectors:

We can use arithmetic operations on two vectors of the same length. They can be added, subtracted, multiplied, or divided. Check the output of the below code.

# Create two vectors.
v1 <- c(1:10)
v2 <- c(101:110)

# Vector addition.
add.result <- v1+v2
print(add.result)
# Vector subtraction.
sub.result <- v2-v1
print(sub.result)
# Vector multiplication.
multi.result <- v1*v2
print(multi.result)
# Vector division.
divi.result <- v2/v1
print(divi.result)

Output:   print(add.result)   [1] 102 104 106 108 110 112 114 116 118 120   print(sub.result)   [1] 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100   print(multi.result)   [1] 101 204 309 416 525 636 749 864 981 1100   print(divi.result)   [1] 101.00000 51.00000 34.33333 26.00000 21.00000 17.66667 15.28571 13.50000 12.11111 11.00000 

Find Minimum and Maximum in a Vector:

The minimum and the maximum of a vector can be found using the min() or the max() function. range() is also available which returns the minimum and maximum in a vector.

x<- 1001:1010
max(x) # Find the maximum
min(x) # Find the minimum
range(x) #Find the range

Output:   max(x) # Find the maximum   [1] 1010   min(x) # Find the minimum   [1] 1001   range(x) #Find the range   [1] 1001 1010 

R Lists

The list is a data structure having elements of mixed data types. A vector having all elements of the same type is called an atomic vector but a vector having elements of a different type is called list.
We can check the type with typeof() or class() function and find the length using length()function.

x <- list("stat",5.1, TRUE, 1 + 4i)
x
class(x)
typeof(x)
length(x)

Output:   x   [[1]]   [1] "stat"   [[2]]   [1] 5.1   [[3]]   [1] TRUE   [[4]]   [1] 1+4i   class(x)   [1] “list”   typeof(x)   [1] “list”   length(x)   [1] 4 

You can create an empty list of a prespecified length with the vector() function.

x <- vector("list", length = 10)
x

Output:   x   [[1]]   NULL   [[2]]   NULL   [[3]]   NULL   [[4]]   NULL   [[5]]   NULL   [[6]]   NULL   [[7]]   NULL   [[8]]   NULL   [[9]]   NULL   [[10]]   NULL 

How to extract elements from a list?

Lists can be subset using two syntaxes, the $ operator, and square brackets []. The $ operator returns a named element of a list. The [] syntax returns a list, while the [[]] returns an element of a list.

# subsetting
l$e
l["e"]
l[1:2]
l[c(1:2)] #index using integer vector
l[-c(3:length(l))] #negative index to exclude elements from 3rd up to last.
l[c(T,F,F,F,F)] # logical index to access elements

Output: > l$e [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [,6] [,7] [,8] [,9] [,10] [1,] 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [2,] 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [3,] 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [4,] 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 [5,] 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 [6,] 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 [7,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 [8,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 [9,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 [10,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 > l["e"] $e [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5] [,6] [,7] [,8] [,9] [,10] [1,] 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [2,] 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [3,] 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [4,] 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 [5,] 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 [6,] 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 [7,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 [8,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 [9,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 [10,] 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 > l[1:2] [[1]] [1] 1 2 3 4 [[2]] [1] FALSE > l[c(1:2)] #index using integer vector [[1]] [1] 1 2 3 4 [[2]] [1] FALSE > l[-c(3:length(l))] #negative index to exclude elements from 3rd up to last. [[1]] [1] 1 2 3 4 [[2]] [1] FALSE l[c(T,F,F,F,F)] [[1]] [1] 1 2 3 4

Modifying a List in R:

We can change components of a list through reassignment.

l[["name"]] <- "Kalyan Nandi"
l

Output: [[1]] [1] 1 2 3 4 [[2]] [1] FALSE [[3]] [1] “Hello Statistics!” $d function (arg = 42) { print(“Hello World!”) } $name [1] “Kalyan Nandi”

R Matrices

In R Programming Matrix is a two-dimensional data structure. They contain elements of the same atomic types. A Matrix can be created using the matrix() function. R can also be used for matrix calculations. Matrices have rows and columns containing a single data type. In a matrix, the order of rows and columns is important. Dimension can be checked directly with the dim() function and all attributes of an object can be checked with the attributes() function. Check the below example.

Creating a matrix in R

m <- matrix(nrow = 2, ncol = 3)
dim(m)
attributes(m)
m <- matrix(1:20, nrow = 4, ncol = 5)
m

Output:   dim(m)   [1] 2 3   attributes(m)   $dim   [1] 2 3   m <- matrix(1:20, nrow = 4, ncol = 5)   m   [,1] [,2] [,3] [,4] [,5]   [1,] 1 5 9 13 17   [2,] 2 6 10 14 18   [3,] 3 7 11 15 19   [4,] 4 8 12 16 20 

Matrices can be created by column-binding or row-binding with the cbind() and rbind() functions.

x<-1:3
y<-10:12
z<-30:32
cbind(x,y,z)
rbind(x,y,z)

Output:   cbind(x,y,z)   x y z   [1,] 1 10 30   [2,] 2 11 31   [3,] 3 12 32   rbind(x,y,z)   [,1] [,2] [,3]   x 1 2 3   y 10 11 12   z 30 31 32 

By default, the matrix function reorders a vector into columns, but we can also tell R to use rows instead.

x <-1:9
matrix(x, nrow = 3, ncol = 3)
matrix(x, nrow = 3, ncol = 3, byrow = TRUE)

Output   cbind(x,y,z)   x y z   [1,] 1 10 30   [2,] 2 11 31   [3,] 3 12 32   rbind(x,y,z)   [,1] [,2] [,3]   x 1 2 3   y 10 11 12   z 30 31 32 

R Arrays

In R, Arrays are the data types that can store data in more than two dimensions. An array can be created using the array() function. It takes vectors as input and uses the values in the dim parameter to create an array. If you create an array of dimensions (2, 3, 4) then it creates 4 rectangular matrices each with 2 rows and 3 columns. Arrays can store only data type.

Give a Name to Columns and Rows:

We can give names to the rows, columns, and matrices in the array by setting the dimnames parameter.

v1 <- c(1,2,3)
v2 <- 100:110
col.names <- c("Col1","Col2","Col3","Col4","Col5","Col6","Col7")
row.names <- c("Row1","Row2")
matrix.names <- c("Matrix1","Matrix2")
arr4 <- array(c(v1,v2), dim=c(2,7,2), dimnames = list(row.names,col.names, matrix.names))
arr4

Output: , , Matrix1 Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5 Col6 Col7 Row1 1 3 101 103 105 107 109 Row2 2 100 102 104 106 108 110 , , Matrix2 Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5 Col6 Col7 Row1 1 3 101 103 105 107 109 Row2 2 100 102 104 106 108 110

Accessing/Extracting Array Elements:

# Print the 2nd row of the 1st matrix of the array.
print(arr4[2,,1])
# Print the element in the 2nd row and 4th column of the 2nd matrix.
print(arr4[2,4,2])
# Print the 2nd Matrix.
print(arr4[,,2])

Output: > print(arr4[2,,1]) Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5 Col6 Col7 2 100 102 104 106 108 110 > > # Print the element in the 2nd row and 4th column of the 2nd matrix. > print(arr4[2,4,2]) [1] 104 > > # Print the 2nd Matrix. > print(arr4[,,2]) Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4 Col5 Col6 Col7 Row1 1 3 101 103 105 107 109 Row2 2 100 102 104 106 108 110

R Factors

Factors are used to represent categorical data and can be unordered or ordered. An example might be “Male” and “Female” if we consider gender. Factor objects can be created with the factor() function.

x <- factor(c("male", "female", "male", "male", "female"))
x
table(x)

Output:   x   [1] male female male male female   Levels: female male   table(x)   x   female male     2      3 

By default, Levels are put in alphabetical order. If you print the above code you will get levels as female and male. But if you want to get your levels in a particular order then set levels parameter like this.

x <- factor(c("male", "female", "male", "male", "female"), levels=c("male", "female"))
x
table(x)

Output:   x   [1] male female male male female   Levels: male female   table(x)   x   male female    3      2 

R Dataframes

Data frames are used to store tabular data in R. They are an important type of object in R and are used in a variety of statistical modeling applications. Data frames are represented as a special type of list where every element of the list has to have the same length. Each element of the list can be thought of as a column and the length of each element of the list is the number of rows. Unlike matrices, data frames can store different classes of objects in each column. Matrices must have every element be the same class (e.g. all integers or all numeric).

Creating a Data Frame:

Data frames can be created explicitly with the data.frame() function.

employee <- c('Ram','Sham','Jadu')
salary <- c(21000, 23400, 26800)
startdate <- as.Date(c('2016-11-1','2015-3-25','2017-3-14'))
employ_data <- data.frame(employee, salary, startdate)
employ_data
View(employ_data)

Output: employ_data employee salary startdate 1 Ram 21000 2016-11-01 2 Sham 23400 2015-03-25 3 Jadu 26800 2017-03-14   View(employ_data) 

Get the Structure of the Data Frame:

If you look at the structure of the data frame now, you see that the variable employee is a character vector, as shown in the following output:

str(employ_data)

Output: > str(employ_data) 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 3 variables: $ employee : Factor w/ 3 levels "Jadu","Ram","Sham": 2 3 1 $ salary : num 21000 23400 26800 $ startdate: Date, format: "2016-11-01" "2015-03-25" "2017-03-14"

Note that the first column, employee, is of type factor, instead of a character vector. By default, data.frame() function converts character vector into factor. To suppress this behavior, we can pass the argument stringsAsFactors=FALSE.

employ_data <- data.frame(employee, salary, startdate, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
str(employ_data)

Output: 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 3 variables: $ employee : chr "Ram" "Sham" "Jadu" $ salary : num 21000 23400 26800 $ startdate: Date, format: "2016-11-01" "2015-03-25" "2017-03-14"

R Packages

The primary location for obtaining R packages is CRAN.

You can obtain information about the available packages on CRAN with the available.packages() function.
a <- available.packages()

head(rownames(a), 30) # Show the names of the first 30 packages
Packages can be installed with the install.packages() function in R.  To install a single package, pass the name of the lecture to the install.packages() function as the first argument.
The following code installs the ggplot2 package from CRAN.
install.packages(“ggplot2”)
You can install multiple R packages at once with a single call to install.packages(). Place the names of the R packages in a character vector.
install.packages(c(“caret”, “ggplot2”, “dplyr”))
 

Loading packages
Installing a package does not make it immediately available to you in R; you must load the package. The library() function is used to load packages into R. The following code is used to load the ggplot2 package into R. Do not put the package name in quotes.
library(ggplot2)
If you have Installed your packages without root access using the command install.packages(“ggplot2″, lib=”/data/Rpackages/”). Then to load use the below command.
library(ggplot2, lib.loc=”/data/Rpackages/”)
After loading a package, the functions exported by that package will be attached to the top of the search() list (after the workspace).
library(ggplot2)

search()

R – CSV() files

In R, we can read data from files stored outside the R environment. We can also write data into files that will be stored and accessed by the operating system. R can read and write into various file formats like CSV, Excel, XML, etc.

Getting and Setting the Working Directory

We can check which directory the R workspace is pointing to using the getwd() function. You can also set a new working directory using setwd()function.

# Get and print current working directory.
print(getwd())

# Set current working directory.
setwd("/web/com")

# Get and print current working directory.
print(getwd())

Output: [1] "/web/com/1441086124_2016" [1] "/web/com"

Input as CSV File

The CSV file is a text file in which the values in the columns are separated by a comma. Let’s consider the following data present in the file named input.csv.

You can create this file using windows notepad by copying and pasting this data. Save the file as input.csv using the save As All files(*.*) option in notepad.

Reading a CSV File

Following is a simple example of read.csv() function to read a CSV file available in your current working directory −

data <- read.csv("input.csv")
print(data)

  id,   name,    salary,   start_date,     dept

R- Charts and Graphs

R- Pie Charts

Pie charts are created with the function pie(x, labels=) where x is a non-negative numeric vector indicating the area of each slice and labels= notes a character vector of names for the slices.

Syntax

The basic syntax for creating a pie-chart using the R is −

pie(x, labels, radius, main, col, clockwise)

Following is the description of the parameters used −

• x is a vector containing the numeric values used in the pie chart.
• labels are used to give a description of the slices.
• radius indicates the radius of the circle of the pie chart. (value between −1 and +1).
• main indicates the title of the chart.
• col indicates the color palette.
• clockwise is a logical value indicating if the slices are drawn clockwise or anti-clockwise.

Simple Pie chart

# Simple Pie Chart
slices <- c(10, 12,4, 16, 8)
lbls <- c("US", "UK", "Australia", "Germany", "France")
pie(slices, labels = lbls, main="Pie Chart of Countries")

 

3-D pie chart

The pie3D( ) function in the plotrix package provides 3D exploded pie charts.

# 3D Exploded Pie Chart
library(plotrix)
slices <- c(10, 12, 4, 16, 8)
lbls <- c("US", "UK", "Australia", "Germany", "France")
pie3D(slices,labels=lbls,explode=0.1,
   main="Pie Chart of Countries ")

R -Bar Charts

A bar chart represents data in rectangular bars with a length of the bar proportional to the value of the variable. R uses the function barplot() to create bar charts. R can draw both vertical and Horizontal bars in the bar chart. In the bar chart, each of the bars can be given different colors.

Let us suppose, we have a vector of maximum temperatures (in degree Celsius) for seven days as follows.

max.temp <- c(22, 27, 26, 24, 23, 26, 28)
barplot(max.temp)

Some of the frequently used ones are, “main” to give the title, “xlab” and “ylab” to provide labels for the axes, names.arg for naming each bar, “col” to define color, etc.

We can also plot bars horizontally by providing the argument horiz=TRUE.

# barchart with added parameters
barplot(max.temp,
main = "Maximum Temperatures in a Week",
xlab = "Degree Celsius",
ylab = "Day",
names.arg = c("Sun", "Mon", "Tue", "Wed", "Thu", "Fri", "Sat"),
col = "darkred",
horiz = TRUE)

Simply doing barplot(age) will not give us the required plot. It will plot 10 bars with height equal to the student’s age. But we want to know the number of students in each age category.

This count can be quickly found using the table() function, as shown below.

> table(age)
age
16 17 18 19 
1  2  6  1

Now plotting this data will give our required bar plot. Note below, that we define the argument “density” to shade the bars.

barplot(table(age),
main="Age Count of 10 Students",
xlab="Age",
ylab="Count",
border="red",
col="blue",
density=10
)

 

A histogram represents the frequencies of values of a variable bucketed into ranges. Histogram is similar to bar chat but the difference is it groups the values into continuous ranges. Each bar in histogram represents the height of the number of values present in that range.

R creates histogram using hist() function. This function takes a vector as an input and uses some more parameters to plot histograms.

Syntax

The basic syntax for creating a histogram using R is −

hist(v,main,xlab,xlim,ylim,breaks,col,border)

Following is the description of the parameters used −

• v is a vector containing numeric values used in the histogram.
• main indicates the title of the chart.
• col is used to set the color of the bars.
• border is used to set the border color of each bar.
• xlab is used to give a description of the x-axis.
• xlim is used to specify the range of values on the x-axis.
• ylim is used to specify the range of values on the y-axis.
• breaks are used to mention the width of each bar.

Example

A simple histogram is created using input vector, label, col, and border parameters.

The script given below will create and save the histogram in the current R working directory.

# Create data for the graph.
v <-  c(9,13,21,8,36,22,12,41,31,33,19)

# Give the chart file a name.
png(file = "histogram.png")

# Create the histogram.
hist(v,xlab = "Weight",col = "yellow",border = "blue")

# Save the file.
dev.off()

 

Range of X and Y values

To specify the range of values allowed in X axis and Y axis, we can use the xlim and ylim parameters.

The width of each bar can be decided by using breaks.

# Create data for the graph.
v <- c(9,13,21,8,36,22,12,41,31,33,19)

# Give the chart file a name.
png(file = "histogram_lim_breaks.png")

# Create the histogram.
hist(v,xlab = "Weight",col = "green",border = "red", xlim = c(0,40), ylim = c(0,5),
   breaks = 5)

# Save the file.
dev.off()

R vs SAS – Which Tool is Better?

The debate around data analytics tools has been going on forever. Each time a new one comes out, comparisons transpire. Although many aspects of the tool remain subjective, beginners want to know which tool is better to start with.
The most popular and widely used tools for data analytics are R and SAS. Both of them have been around for a long time and are often pitted against each other. So, let’s compare them based on the most relevant factors.

1. Availability and Cost: SAS is widely used in most private organizations as it is a commercial software. It is more expensive than any other data analytics tool available. It might thus be a bit difficult buying the software if you are an individual professional or a student starting out. On the other hand, R is an open source software and is completely free to use. Anyone can begin using it right away without having to spend a penny. So, regarding availability and cost, R is hands down the better tool.
2. Ease of learning: Since SAS is a commercial software, it has a whole lot of online resources available. Also, those who already know SQL might find it easier to adapt to SAS as it comes with PROC SQL option. The tool has a user-friendly GUI. It comes with an extensive documentation and tutorial base which can help early learners get started seamlessly. Whereas, the learning curve for R is quite steep. You need to learn to code at the root level and carrying out simple tasks demand a lot of time and effort with R. However, several forums and online communities post religiously about its usage.
3. Data Handling Capabilities: When it comes to data handling, both SAS and R perform well, but there are some caveats for the latter. While SAS can even churn through terabytes of data with ease, R might be constrained as it makes use of the available RAM in the machine. This can be a hassle for 32-bit systems with low RAM capacity. Due to this, R can at times become unresponsive or give an ‘out of memory’ error. Both of them can run parallel computations, support integrations for Hadoop, Spark, Cloudera and Apache Pig among others. Also, the availability of devices with better RAM capacity might negate the disadvantages of R.
4. Graphical Capabilities: Graphical capabilities or data visualization is the strongest forte of R. This is where SAS lacks behind in a major way. R has access to packages like GGPlot, RGIS, Lattice, and GGVIS among others which provide superior graphical competency. In comparison, Base SAS is struggling hard to catch up with the advancements in graphics and visualization in data analytics. Even the graphics packages available in SAS are poorly documented which makes them difficult to use.
5. Advancements in Tool: Advancements in the industry give way to advancements in tools, and both SAS and R hold up pretty well in this regard. SAS, being a corporate software, rolls out new features and technologies frequently with new versions of its software. However, the updates are not as fast as R since it is open source software and has many contributors throughout the world. Alternatively, the latest updates in SAS are pushed out after thorough testing, making them much more stable, and reliable than R. Both the tools come with a fair share of pros & cons.
6. Job Scenario: Currently, large corporations insist on using SAS, but SMEs and start-ups are increasingly opting for R, given that it’s free. The current job trend seems to show that while SAS is losing its momentum, R is gaining potential. The job scenario is on the cusp of change, and both the tools seem strong, but since R is on an uphill path, it can probably witness more jobs in the future, albeit not in huge corporates.
7. Deep Learning Support: While SAS has just begun work on adding deep learning support, R has added support for a few packages which enable deep learning capabilities in the tool. You can use KerasR and keras package in R which are mere interfaces for the original Keras package built on Python. Although none of the tools are excellent facilitators of deep learning, R has seen some recent active developments on this front.
8. Customer Service Support and Community: As one would expect from full-fledged commercial software, SAS offers excellent customer service support as well as the backing of a helpful community. Since R is free open-source software, expecting customer support will be hard to justify. However, it has a vast online community that can help you with almost everything. On the other hand, no matter what problem you face with SAS, you can immediately reach out to their customer support and get it solved without any hassles.

Final Verdict
As per estimations by the Economic Times, the analytics industry will grow to $16 billion till 2025 in India. If you wish to venture into this domain, there can’t be a better time. Just start learning the tool you think is better based on the comparison points above.

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Original article source at: https://www.mygreatlearning.com

#r #programming 

Understanding Arrays in Python

Learn how to use Python arrays. Create arrays in Python using the array module. You'll see how to define them and the different methods commonly used for performing operations on them.
 

The artcile covers arrays that you create by importing the array module. We won't cover NumPy arrays here.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Arrays
   1. The differences between Lists and Arrays
   2. When to use arrays
2. How to use arrays
   1. Define arrays
   2. Find the length of arrays
   3. Array indexing
   4. Search through arrays
   5. Loop through arrays
   6. Slice an array
3. Array methods for performing operations
   1. Change an existing value
   2. Add a new value
   3. Remove a value
4. Conclusion

Let's get started!

---

What are Python Arrays?

Arrays are a fundamental data structure, and an important part of most programming languages. In Python, they are containers which are able to store more than one item at the same time.

Specifically, they are an ordered collection of elements with every value being of the same data type. That is the most important thing to remember about Python arrays - the fact that they can only hold a sequence of multiple items that are of the same type.

What's the Difference between Python Lists and Python Arrays?

Lists are one of the most common data structures in Python, and a core part of the language.

Lists and arrays behave similarly.

Just like arrays, lists are an ordered sequence of elements.

They are also mutable and not fixed in size, which means they can grow and shrink throughout the life of the program. Items can be added and removed, making them very flexible to work with.

However, lists and arrays are not the same thing.

Lists store items that are of various data types. This means that a list can contain integers, floating point numbers, strings, or any other Python data type, at the same time. That is not the case with arrays.

As mentioned in the section above, arrays store only items that are of the same single data type. There are arrays that contain only integers, or only floating point numbers, or only any other Python data type you want to use.

When to Use Python Arrays

Lists are built into the Python programming language, whereas arrays aren't. Arrays are not a built-in data structure, and therefore need to be imported via the array module in order to be used.

Arrays of the array module are a thin wrapper over C arrays, and are useful when you want to work with homogeneous data.

They are also more compact and take up less memory and space which makes them more size efficient compared to lists.

If you want to perform mathematical calculations, then you should use NumPy arrays by importing the NumPy package. Besides that, you should just use Python arrays when you really need to, as lists work in a similar way and are more flexible to work with.

How to Use Arrays in Python

In order to create Python arrays, you'll first have to import the array module which contains all the necassary functions.

There are three ways you can import the array module:

1. By using import array at the top of the file. This includes the module array. You would then go on to create an array using array.array().

import array

#how you would create an array
array.array()

1. Instead of having to type array.array() all the time, you could use import array as arr at the top of the file, instead of import array alone. You would then create an array by typing arr.array(). The arr acts as an alias name, with the array constructor then immediately following it.

import array as arr

#how you would create an array
arr.array()

1. Lastly, you could also use from array import *, with * importing all the functionalities available. You would then create an array by writing the array() constructor alone.

from array import *

#how you would create an array
array()

How to Define Arrays in Python

Once you've imported the array module, you can then go on to define a Python array.

The general syntax for creating an array looks like this:

variable_name = array(typecode,[elements])

Let's break it down:

• variable_name would be the name of the array.
• The typecode specifies what kind of elements would be stored in the array. Whether it would be an array of integers, an array of floats or an array of any other Python data type. Remember that all elements should be of the same data type.
• Inside square brackets you mention the elements that would be stored in the array, with each element being separated by a comma. You can also create an empty array by just writing variable_name = array(typecode) alone, without any elements.

Below is a typecode table, with the different typecodes that can be used with the different data types when defining Python arrays:

TYPECODE	C TYPE	PYTHON TYPE	SIZE
'b'	signed char	int	1
'B'	unsigned char	int	1
'u'	wchar_t	Unicode character	2
'h'	signed short	int	2
'H'	unsigned short	int	2
'i'	signed int	int	2
'I'	unsigned int	int	2
'l'	signed long	int	4
'L'	unsigned long	int	4
'q'	signed long long	int	8
'Q'	unsigned long long	int	8
'f'	float	float	4
'd'	double	float	8

Tying everything together, here is an example of how you would define an array in Python:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30])

Let's break it down:

• First we included the array module, in this case with import array as arr .
• Then, we created a numbers array.
• We used arr.array() because of import array as arr .
• Inside the array() constructor, we first included i, for signed integer. Signed integer means that the array can include positive and negative values. Unsigned integer, with H for example, would mean that no negative values are allowed.
• Lastly, we included the values to be stored in the array in square brackets.

Keep in mind that if you tried to include values that were not of i typecode, meaning they were not integer values, you would get an error:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10.0,20,30])


print(numbers)

#output

#Traceback (most recent call last):
# File "/Users/dionysialemonaki/python_articles/demo.py", line 14, in <module>
#   numbers = arr.array('i',[10.0,20,30])
#TypeError: 'float' object cannot be interpreted as an integer

In the example above, I tried to include a floating point number in the array. I got an error because this is meant to be an integer array only.

Another way to create an array is the following:

from array import *

#an array of floating point values
numbers = array('d',[10.0,20.0,30.0])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('d', [10.0, 20.0, 30.0])

The example above imported the array module via from array import * and created an array numbers of float data type. This means that it holds only floating point numbers, which is specified with the 'd' typecode.

How to Find the Length of an Array in Python

To find out the exact number of elements contained in an array, use the built-in len() method.

It will return the integer number that is equal to the total number of elements in the array you specify.

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


print(len(numbers))

#output
# 3

In the example above, the array contained three elements – 10, 20, 30 – so the length of numbers is 3.

Array Indexing and How to Access Individual Items in an Array in Python

Each item in an array has a specific address. Individual items are accessed by referencing their index number.

Indexing in Python, and in all programming languages and computing in general, starts at 0. It is important to remember that counting starts at 0 and not at 1.

To access an element, you first write the name of the array followed by square brackets. Inside the square brackets you include the item's index number.

The general syntax would look something like this:

array_name[index_value_of_item]

Here is how you would access each individual element in an array:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers[0]) # gets the 1st element
print(numbers[1]) # gets the 2nd element
print(numbers[2]) # gets the 3rd element

#output

#10
#20
#30

Remember that the index value of the last element of an array is always one less than the length of the array. Where n is the length of the array, n - 1 will be the index value of the last item.

Note that you can also access each individual element using negative indexing.

With negative indexing, the last element would have an index of -1, the second to last element would have an index of -2, and so on.

Here is how you would get each item in an array using that method:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers[-1]) #gets last item
print(numbers[-2]) #gets second to last item
print(numbers[-3]) #gets first item
 
#output

#30
#20
#10

How to Search Through an Array in Python

You can find out an element's index number by using the index() method.

You pass the value of the element being searched as the argument to the method, and the element's index number is returned.

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#search for the index of the value 10
print(numbers.index(10))

#output

#0

If there is more than one element with the same value, the index of the first instance of the value will be returned:

import array as arr 


numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20,30])

#search for the index of the value 10
#will return the index number of the first instance of the value 10
print(numbers.index(10))

#output

#0

How to Loop through an Array in Python

You've seen how to access each individual element in an array and print it out on its own.

You've also seen how to print the array, using the print() method. That method gives the following result:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30])

What if you want to print each value one by one?

This is where a loop comes in handy. You can loop through the array and print out each value, one-by-one, with each loop iteration.

For this you can use a simple for loop:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

for number in numbers:
    print(number)
    
#output
#10
#20
#30

You could also use the range() function, and pass the len() method as its parameter. This would give the same result as above:

import array as arr  

values = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#prints each individual value in the array
for value in range(len(values)):
    print(values[value])

#output

#10
#20
#30

How to Slice an Array in Python

To access a specific range of values inside the array, use the slicing operator, which is a colon :.

When using the slicing operator and you only include one value, the counting starts from 0 by default. It gets the first item, and goes up to but not including the index number you specify.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#get the values 10 and 20 only
print(numbers[:2])  #first to second position

#output

#array('i', [10, 20])

When you pass two numbers as arguments, you specify a range of numbers. In this case, the counting starts at the position of the first number in the range, and up to but not including the second one:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


#get the values 20 and 30 only
print(numbers[1:3]) #second to third position

#output

#rray('i', [20, 30])

Methods For Performing Operations on Arrays in Python

Arrays are mutable, which means they are changeable. You can change the value of the different items, add new ones, or remove any you don't want in your program anymore.

Let's see some of the most commonly used methods which are used for performing operations on arrays.

How to Change the Value of an Item in an Array

You can change the value of a specific element by speficying its position and assigning it a new value:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#change the first element
#change it from having a value of 10 to having a value of 40
numbers[0] = 40

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [40, 20, 30])

How to Add a New Value to an Array

To add one single value at the end of an array, use the append() method:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 to the end of numbers
numbers.append(40)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30, 40])

Be aware that the new item you add needs to be the same data type as the rest of the items in the array.

Look what happens when I try to add a float to an array of integers:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 to the end of numbers
numbers.append(40.0)

print(numbers)

#output

#Traceback (most recent call last):
#  File "/Users/dionysialemonaki/python_articles/demo.py", line 19, in <module>
#   numbers.append(40.0)
#TypeError: 'float' object cannot be interpreted as an integer

But what if you want to add more than one value to the end an array?

Use the extend() method, which takes an iterable (such as a list of items) as an argument. Again, make sure that the new items are all the same data type.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integers 40,50,60 to the end of numbers
#The numbers need to be enclosed in square brackets

numbers.extend([40,50,60])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60])

And what if you don't want to add an item to the end of an array? Use the insert() method, to add an item at a specific position.

The insert() function takes two arguments: the index number of the position the new element will be inserted, and the value of the new element.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 in the first position
#remember indexing starts at 0

numbers.insert(0,40)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [40, 10, 20, 30])

How to Remove a Value from an Array

To remove an element from an array, use the remove() method and include the value as an argument to the method.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

numbers.remove(10)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30])

With remove(), only the first instance of the value you pass as an argument will be removed.

See what happens when there are more than one identical values:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20])

numbers.remove(10)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30, 10, 20])

Only the first occurence of 10 is removed.

You can also use the pop() method, and specify the position of the element to be removed:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20])

#remove the first instance of 10
numbers.pop(0)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30, 10, 20])

Conclusion

And there you have it - you now know the basics of how to create arrays in Python using the array module. Hopefully you found this guide helpful.

You'll start from the basics and learn in an interacitve and beginner-friendly way. You'll also build five projects at the end to put into practice and help reinforce what you learned.

Thanks for reading and happy coding!

Original article source at https://www.freecodecamp.org

#python 

How to Create Arrays in Python

In this tutorial, you'll know the basics of how to create arrays in Python using the array module. Learn how to use Python arrays. You'll see how to define them and the different methods commonly used for performing operations on them.

This tutorialvideo on 'Arrays in Python' will help you establish a strong hold on all the fundamentals in python programming language. Below are the topics covered in this video:  
1:15 What is an array?
2:53 Is python list same as an array?
3:48  How to create arrays in python?
7:19 Accessing array elements
9:59 Basic array operations
        - 10:33  Finding the length of an array
        - 11:44  Adding Elements
        - 15:06  Removing elements
        - 18:32  Array concatenation
       - 20:59  Slicing
       - 23:26  Looping  

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Python Array Tutorial – Define, Index, Methods

In this article, you'll learn how to use Python arrays. You'll see how to define them and the different methods commonly used for performing operations on them.

The artcile covers arrays that you create by importing the array module. We won't cover NumPy arrays here.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to Arrays
   1. The differences between Lists and Arrays
   2. When to use arrays
2. How to use arrays
   1. Define arrays
   2. Find the length of arrays
   3. Array indexing
   4. Search through arrays
   5. Loop through arrays
   6. Slice an array
3. Array methods for performing operations
   1. Change an existing value
   2. Add a new value
   3. Remove a value
4. Conclusion

Let's get started!

What are Python Arrays?

Arrays are a fundamental data structure, and an important part of most programming languages. In Python, they are containers which are able to store more than one item at the same time.

Specifically, they are an ordered collection of elements with every value being of the same data type. That is the most important thing to remember about Python arrays - the fact that they can only hold a sequence of multiple items that are of the same type.

What's the Difference between Python Lists and Python Arrays?

Lists are one of the most common data structures in Python, and a core part of the language.

Lists and arrays behave similarly.

Just like arrays, lists are an ordered sequence of elements.

They are also mutable and not fixed in size, which means they can grow and shrink throughout the life of the program. Items can be added and removed, making them very flexible to work with.

However, lists and arrays are not the same thing.

Lists store items that are of various data types. This means that a list can contain integers, floating point numbers, strings, or any other Python data type, at the same time. That is not the case with arrays.

As mentioned in the section above, arrays store only items that are of the same single data type. There are arrays that contain only integers, or only floating point numbers, or only any other Python data type you want to use.

When to Use Python Arrays

Lists are built into the Python programming language, whereas arrays aren't. Arrays are not a built-in data structure, and therefore need to be imported via the array module in order to be used.

Arrays of the array module are a thin wrapper over C arrays, and are useful when you want to work with homogeneous data.

They are also more compact and take up less memory and space which makes them more size efficient compared to lists.

If you want to perform mathematical calculations, then you should use NumPy arrays by importing the NumPy package. Besides that, you should just use Python arrays when you really need to, as lists work in a similar way and are more flexible to work with.

How to Use Arrays in Python

In order to create Python arrays, you'll first have to import the array module which contains all the necassary functions.

There are three ways you can import the array module:

• By using import array at the top of the file. This includes the module array. You would then go on to create an array using array.array().

import array

#how you would create an array
array.array()

• Instead of having to type array.array() all the time, you could use import array as arr at the top of the file, instead of import array alone. You would then create an array by typing arr.array(). The arr acts as an alias name, with the array constructor then immediately following it.

import array as arr

#how you would create an array
arr.array()

• Lastly, you could also use from array import *, with * importing all the functionalities available. You would then create an array by writing the array() constructor alone.

from array import *

#how you would create an array
array()

How to Define Arrays in Python

Once you've imported the array module, you can then go on to define a Python array.

The general syntax for creating an array looks like this:

variable_name = array(typecode,[elements])

Let's break it down:

• variable_name would be the name of the array.
• The typecode specifies what kind of elements would be stored in the array. Whether it would be an array of integers, an array of floats or an array of any other Python data type. Remember that all elements should be of the same data type.
• Inside square brackets you mention the elements that would be stored in the array, with each element being separated by a comma. You can also create an empty array by just writing variable_name = array(typecode) alone, without any elements.

Below is a typecode table, with the different typecodes that can be used with the different data types when defining Python arrays:

TYPECODE	C TYPE	PYTHON TYPE	SIZE
'b'	signed char	int	1
'B'	unsigned char	int	1
'u'	wchar_t	Unicode character	2
'h'	signed short	int	2
'H'	unsigned short	int	2
'i'	signed int	int	2
'I'	unsigned int	int	2
'l'	signed long	int	4
'L'	unsigned long	int	4
'q'	signed long long	int	8
'Q'	unsigned long long	int	8
'f'	float	float	4
'd'	double	float	8

Tying everything together, here is an example of how you would define an array in Python:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30])

Let's break it down:

• First we included the array module, in this case with import array as arr .
• Then, we created a numbers array.
• We used arr.array() because of import array as arr .
• Inside the array() constructor, we first included i, for signed integer. Signed integer means that the array can include positive and negative values. Unsigned integer, with H for example, would mean that no negative values are allowed.
• Lastly, we included the values to be stored in the array in square brackets.

Keep in mind that if you tried to include values that were not of i typecode, meaning they were not integer values, you would get an error:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10.0,20,30])


print(numbers)

#output

#Traceback (most recent call last):
# File "/Users/dionysialemonaki/python_articles/demo.py", line 14, in <module>
#   numbers = arr.array('i',[10.0,20,30])
#TypeError: 'float' object cannot be interpreted as an integer

In the example above, I tried to include a floating point number in the array. I got an error because this is meant to be an integer array only.

Another way to create an array is the following:

from array import *

#an array of floating point values
numbers = array('d',[10.0,20.0,30.0])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('d', [10.0, 20.0, 30.0])

The example above imported the array module via from array import * and created an array numbers of float data type. This means that it holds only floating point numbers, which is specified with the 'd' typecode.

How to Find the Length of an Array in Python

To find out the exact number of elements contained in an array, use the built-in len() method.

It will return the integer number that is equal to the total number of elements in the array you specify.

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


print(len(numbers))

#output
# 3

In the example above, the array contained three elements – 10, 20, 30 – so the length of numbers is 3.

Array Indexing and How to Access Individual Items in an Array in Python

Each item in an array has a specific address. Individual items are accessed by referencing their index number.

Indexing in Python, and in all programming languages and computing in general, starts at 0. It is important to remember that counting starts at 0 and not at 1.

To access an element, you first write the name of the array followed by square brackets. Inside the square brackets you include the item's index number.

The general syntax would look something like this:

array_name[index_value_of_item]

Here is how you would access each individual element in an array:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers[0]) # gets the 1st element
print(numbers[1]) # gets the 2nd element
print(numbers[2]) # gets the 3rd element

#output

#10
#20
#30

Remember that the index value of the last element of an array is always one less than the length of the array. Where n is the length of the array, n - 1 will be the index value of the last item.

Note that you can also access each individual element using negative indexing.

With negative indexing, the last element would have an index of -1, the second to last element would have an index of -2, and so on.

Here is how you would get each item in an array using that method:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers[-1]) #gets last item
print(numbers[-2]) #gets second to last item
print(numbers[-3]) #gets first item
 
#output

#30
#20
#10

How to Search Through an Array in Python

You can find out an element's index number by using the index() method.

You pass the value of the element being searched as the argument to the method, and the element's index number is returned.

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#search for the index of the value 10
print(numbers.index(10))

#output

#0

If there is more than one element with the same value, the index of the first instance of the value will be returned:

import array as arr 


numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20,30])

#search for the index of the value 10
#will return the index number of the first instance of the value 10
print(numbers.index(10))

#output

#0

How to Loop through an Array in Python

You've seen how to access each individual element in an array and print it out on its own.

You've also seen how to print the array, using the print() method. That method gives the following result:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30])

What if you want to print each value one by one?

This is where a loop comes in handy. You can loop through the array and print out each value, one-by-one, with each loop iteration.

For this you can use a simple for loop:

import array as arr 

numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

for number in numbers:
    print(number)
    
#output
#10
#20
#30

You could also use the range() function, and pass the len() method as its parameter. This would give the same result as above:

import array as arr  

values = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#prints each individual value in the array
for value in range(len(values)):
    print(values[value])

#output

#10
#20
#30

How to Slice an Array in Python

To access a specific range of values inside the array, use the slicing operator, which is a colon :.

When using the slicing operator and you only include one value, the counting starts from 0 by default. It gets the first item, and goes up to but not including the index number you specify.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#get the values 10 and 20 only
print(numbers[:2])  #first to second position

#output

#array('i', [10, 20])

When you pass two numbers as arguments, you specify a range of numbers. In this case, the counting starts at the position of the first number in the range, and up to but not including the second one:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])


#get the values 20 and 30 only
print(numbers[1:3]) #second to third position

#output

#rray('i', [20, 30])

Methods For Performing Operations on Arrays in Python

Arrays are mutable, which means they are changeable. You can change the value of the different items, add new ones, or remove any you don't want in your program anymore.

Let's see some of the most commonly used methods which are used for performing operations on arrays.

How to Change the Value of an Item in an Array

You can change the value of a specific element by speficying its position and assigning it a new value:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#change the first element
#change it from having a value of 10 to having a value of 40
numbers[0] = 40

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [40, 20, 30])

How to Add a New Value to an Array

To add one single value at the end of an array, use the append() method:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 to the end of numbers
numbers.append(40)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30, 40])

Be aware that the new item you add needs to be the same data type as the rest of the items in the array.

Look what happens when I try to add a float to an array of integers:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 to the end of numbers
numbers.append(40.0)

print(numbers)

#output

#Traceback (most recent call last):
#  File "/Users/dionysialemonaki/python_articles/demo.py", line 19, in <module>
#   numbers.append(40.0)
#TypeError: 'float' object cannot be interpreted as an integer

But what if you want to add more than one value to the end an array?

Use the extend() method, which takes an iterable (such as a list of items) as an argument. Again, make sure that the new items are all the same data type.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integers 40,50,60 to the end of numbers
#The numbers need to be enclosed in square brackets

numbers.extend([40,50,60])

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60])

And what if you don't want to add an item to the end of an array? Use the insert() method, to add an item at a specific position.

The insert() function takes two arguments: the index number of the position the new element will be inserted, and the value of the new element.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

#add the integer 40 in the first position
#remember indexing starts at 0

numbers.insert(0,40)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [40, 10, 20, 30])

How to Remove a Value from an Array

To remove an element from an array, use the remove() method and include the value as an argument to the method.

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30])

numbers.remove(10)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30])

With remove(), only the first instance of the value you pass as an argument will be removed.

See what happens when there are more than one identical values:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20])

numbers.remove(10)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30, 10, 20])

Only the first occurence of 10 is removed.

You can also use the pop() method, and specify the position of the element to be removed:

import array as arr 

#original array
numbers = arr.array('i',[10,20,30,10,20])

#remove the first instance of 10
numbers.pop(0)

print(numbers)

#output

#array('i', [20, 30, 10, 20])

Conclusion

And there you have it - you now know the basics of how to create arrays in Python using the array module. Hopefully you found this guide helpful.

Thanks for reading and happy coding!

#python #programming 

Javascript array find: How to Find Element in Javascript

Javascript array find() is an inbuilt js function that returns the value of the first item in the Array that satisfies a provided testing function. Otherwise,  undefined will be returned. The array find() method returns the value of the first element in an array that passes a test of provided function.

If an Array find() method finds an item where the function returns a true value. Javascript find() returns the value of that array item immediately and does not check the remaining values of that Array.

Javascript array find

Javascript Array.find() is the inbuilt function that is used to get a value of the first item in the Array that meets the provided condition. If you need an index of the found item in the Array, use the  findIndex(). If you need to find an index of the value, use Array  .prototype.indexOf(). If you need to find if the value exists in an array, use Array  .prototype.includes().

It checks all the items of the Array, and whichever the first item meets, the condition is going to print. If more than one item meets the condition, then the first item satisfying the requirement is returned. Suppose that you want to find the first odd number in the Array. The argument function checks whether an argument passed to it is an odd number or not.

Javascript find() function calls an argument function for every item of the Array.  The first odd number for which argument function returns true is reported by the find() function as the answer.

#javascript #javascript find #array.find

Activeinteraction: Manage Application Specific Business Logic Of Ruby

ActiveInteraction

ActiveInteraction manages application-specific business logic. It's an implementation of service objects designed to blend seamlessly into Rails. 

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ActiveInteraction gives you a place to put your business logic. It also helps you write safer code by validating that your inputs conform to your expectations. If ActiveModel deals with your nouns, then ActiveInteraction handles your verbs.

• Installation
• Basic usage
  • Validations
• Filters
  • Basic Filters
    • Array
    • Boolean
    • File
    • Hash
    • String
    • Symbol
    • Dates and times
      • Date
      • DateTime
      • Time
    • Numbers
      • Decimal
      • Float
      • Integer
  • Advanced Filters
    • Interface
    • Object
    • Record
• Rails
  • Setup
  • Controller
    • Index
    • Show
    • New
    • Create
    • Destroy
    • Edit
    • Update
• Advanced usage
  • Callbacks
  • Composition
  • Defaults
  • Descriptions
  • Errors
  • Forms
  • Shared input options
  • Optional inputs
  • Translations
• Credits

API Documentation

Installation

Add it to your Gemfile:

gem 'active_interaction', '~> 5.1'

Or install it manually:

$ gem install active_interaction --version '~> 5.1'

This project uses Semantic Versioning. Check out GitHub releases for a detailed list of changes.

Basic usage

To define an interaction, create a subclass of ActiveInteraction::Base. Then you need to do two things:

Define your inputs. Use class filter methods to define what you expect your inputs to look like. For instance, if you need a boolean flag for pepperoni, use boolean :pepperoni. Check out the filters section for all the available options.

Define your business logic. Do this by implementing the #execute method. Each input you defined will be available as the type you specified. If any of the inputs are invalid, #execute won't be run. Filters are responsible for checking your inputs. Check out the validations section if you need more than that.

That covers the basics. Let's put it all together into a simple example that squares a number.

require 'active_interaction'

class Square < ActiveInteraction::Base
  float :x

  def execute
    x**2
  end
end

Call .run on your interaction to execute it. You must pass a single hash to .run. It will return an instance of your interaction. By convention, we call this an outcome. You can use the #valid? method to ask the outcome if it's valid. If it's invalid, take a look at its errors with #errors. In either case, the value returned from #execute will be stored in #result.

outcome = Square.run(x: 'two point one')
outcome.valid?
# => nil
outcome.errors.messages
# => {:x=>["is not a valid float"]}

outcome = Square.run(x: 2.1)
outcome.valid?
# => true
outcome.result
# => 4.41

You can also use .run! to execute interactions. It's like .run but more dangerous. It doesn't return an outcome. If the outcome would be invalid, it will instead raise an error. But if the outcome would be valid, it simply returns the result.

Square.run!(x: 'two point one')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: X is not a valid float
Square.run!(x: 2.1)
# => 4.41

Validations

ActiveInteraction checks your inputs. Often you'll want more than that. For instance, you may want an input to be a string with at least one non-whitespace character. Instead of writing your own validation for that, you can use validations from ActiveModel.

These validations aren't provided by ActiveInteraction. They're from ActiveModel. You can also use any custom validations you wrote yourself in your interactions.

class SayHello < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :name

  validates :name,
    presence: true

  def execute
    "Hello, #{name}!"
  end
end

When you run this interaction, two things will happen. First ActiveInteraction will check your inputs. Then ActiveModel will validate them. If both of those are happy, it will be executed.

SayHello.run!(name: nil)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Name is required

SayHello.run!(name: '')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Name can't be blank

SayHello.run!(name: 'Taylor')
# => "Hello, Taylor!"

Filters

You can define filters inside an interaction using the appropriate class method. Each method has the same signature:

Some symbolic names. These are the attributes to create.

An optional hash of options. Each filter supports at least these two options:

default is the fallback value to use if nil is given. To make a filter optional, set default: nil.

desc is a human-readable description of the input. This can be useful for generating documentation. For more information about this, read the descriptions section.

An optional block of sub-filters. Only array and hash filters support this. Other filters will ignore blocks when given to them.

Let's take a look at an example filter. It defines three inputs: x, y, and z. Those inputs are optional and they all share the same description ("an example filter").

array :x, :y, :z,
  default: nil,
  desc: 'an example filter' do
    # Some filters support sub-filters here.
  end

In general, filters accept values of the type they correspond to, plus a few alternatives that can be reasonably coerced. Typically the coercions come from Rails, so "1" can be interpreted as the boolean value true, the string "1", or the number 1.

Basic Filters

Array

In addition to accepting arrays, array inputs will convert ActiveRecord::Relations into arrays.

class ArrayInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  array :toppings

  def execute
    toppings.size
  end
end

ArrayInteraction.run!(toppings: 'everything')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Toppings is not a valid array
ArrayInteraction.run!(toppings: [:cheese, 'pepperoni'])
# => 2

Use a block to constrain the types of elements an array can contain. Note that you can only have one filter inside an array block, and it must not have a name.

array :birthdays do
  date
end

For interface, object, and record filters, the name of the array filter will be singularized and used to determine the type of value passed. In the example below, the objects passed would need to be of type Cow.

array :cows do
  object
end

You can override this by passing the necessary information to the inner filter.

array :managers do
  object class: People
end

Errors that occur will be indexed based on the Rails configuration setting index_nested_attribute_errors. You can also manually override this setting with the :index_errors option. In this state is is possible to get multiple errors from a single filter.

class ArrayInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  array :favorite_numbers, index_errors: true do
    integer
  end

  def execute
    favorite_numbers
  end
end

ArrayInteraction.run(favorite_numbers: [8, 'bazillion']).errors.details
=> {:"favorite_numbers[1]"=>[{:error=>:invalid_type, :type=>"array"}]}

With :index_errors set to false the error would have been:

{:favorite_numbers=>[{:error=>:invalid_type, :type=>"array"}]}

Boolean

Boolean filters convert the strings "1", "true", and "on" (case-insensitive) into true. They also convert "0", "false", and "off" into false. Blank strings will be treated as nil.

class BooleanInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  boolean :kool_aid

  def execute
    'Oh yeah!' if kool_aid
  end
end

BooleanInteraction.run!(kool_aid: 1)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Kool aid is not a valid boolean
BooleanInteraction.run!(kool_aid: true)
# => "Oh yeah!"

File

File filters also accept TempFiles and anything that responds to #rewind. That means that you can pass the params from uploading files via forms in Rails.

class FileInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  file :readme

  def execute
    readme.size
  end
end

FileInteraction.run!(readme: 'README.md')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Readme is not a valid file
FileInteraction.run!(readme: File.open('README.md'))
# => 21563

Hash

Hash filters accept hashes. The expected value types are given by passing a block and nesting other filters. You can have any number of filters inside a hash, including other hashes.

class HashInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  hash :preferences do
    boolean :newsletter
    boolean :sweepstakes
  end

  def execute
    puts 'Thanks for joining the newsletter!' if preferences[:newsletter]
    puts 'Good luck in the sweepstakes!' if preferences[:sweepstakes]
  end
end

HashInteraction.run!(preferences: 'yes, no')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Preferences is not a valid hash
HashInteraction.run!(preferences: { newsletter: true, 'sweepstakes' => false })
# Thanks for joining the newsletter!
# => nil

Setting default hash values can be tricky. The default value has to be either nil or {}. Use nil to make the hash optional. Use {} if you want to set some defaults for values inside the hash.

hash :optional,
  default: nil
# => {:optional=>nil}

hash :with_defaults,
  default: {} do
    boolean :likes_cookies,
      default: true
  end
# => {:with_defaults=>{:likes_cookies=>true}}

By default, hashes remove any keys that aren't given as nested filters. To allow all hash keys, set strip: false. In general we don't recommend doing this, but it's sometimes necessary.

hash :stuff,
  strip: false

String

String filters define inputs that only accept strings.

class StringInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :name

  def execute
    "Hello, #{name}!"
  end
end

StringInteraction.run!(name: 0xDEADBEEF)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Name is not a valid string
StringInteraction.run!(name: 'Taylor')
# => "Hello, Taylor!"

String filter strips leading and trailing whitespace by default. To disable it, set the strip option to false.

string :comment,
  strip: false

Symbol

Symbol filters define inputs that accept symbols. Strings will be converted into symbols.

class SymbolInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  symbol :method

  def execute
    method.to_proc
  end
end

SymbolInteraction.run!(method: -> {})
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Method is not a valid symbol
SymbolInteraction.run!(method: :object_id)
# => #<Proc:0x007fdc9ba94118>

Dates and times

Filters that work with dates and times behave similarly. By default, they all convert strings into their expected data types using .parse. Blank strings will be treated as nil. If you give the format option, they will instead convert strings using .strptime. Note that formats won't work with DateTime and Time filters if a time zone is set.

Date

class DateInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  date :birthday

  def execute
    birthday + (18 * 365)
  end
end

DateInteraction.run!(birthday: 'yesterday')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Birthday is not a valid date
DateInteraction.run!(birthday: Date.new(1989, 9, 1))
# => #<Date: 2007-08-28 ((2454341j,0s,0n),+0s,2299161j)>

date :birthday,
  format: '%Y-%m-%d'

DateTime

class DateTimeInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  date_time :now

  def execute
    now.iso8601
  end
end

DateTimeInteraction.run!(now: 'now')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Now is not a valid date time
DateTimeInteraction.run!(now: DateTime.now)
# => "2015-03-11T11:04:40-05:00"

date_time :start,
  format: '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S'

Time

In addition to converting strings with .parse (or .strptime), time filters convert numbers with .at.

class TimeInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  time :epoch

  def execute
    Time.now - epoch
  end
end

TimeInteraction.run!(epoch: 'a long, long time ago')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Epoch is not a valid time
TimeInteraction.run!(epoch: Time.new(1970))
# => 1426068362.5136619

time :start,
  format: '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S'

Numbers

All numeric filters accept numeric input. They will also convert strings using the appropriate method from Kernel (like .Float). Blank strings will be treated as nil.

Decimal

class DecimalInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  decimal :price

  def execute
    price * 1.0825
  end
end

DecimalInteraction.run!(price: 'one ninety-nine')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Price is not a valid decimal
DecimalInteraction.run!(price: BigDecimal(1.99, 2))
# => #<BigDecimal:7fe792a42028,'0.2165E1',18(45)>

To specify the number of significant digits, use the digits option.

decimal :dollars,
  digits: 2

Float

class FloatInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  float :x

  def execute
    x**2
  end
end

FloatInteraction.run!(x: 'two point one')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: X is not a valid float
FloatInteraction.run!(x: 2.1)
# => 4.41

Integer

class IntegerInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  integer :limit

  def execute
    limit.downto(0).to_a
  end
end

IntegerInteraction.run!(limit: 'ten')
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Limit is not a valid integer
IntegerInteraction.run!(limit: 10)
# => [10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]

When a String is passed into an integer input, the value will be coerced. A default base of 10 is used though it may be overridden with the base option. If a base of 0 is provided, the coercion will respect radix indicators present in the string.

class IntegerInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  integer :limit1
  integer :limit2, base: 8
  integer :limit3, base: 0

  def execute
    [limit1, limit2, limit3]
  end
end

IntegerInteraction.run!(limit1: 71, limit2: 71, limit3: 71)
# => [71, 71, 71]
IntegerInteraction.run!(limit1: "071", limit2: "071", limit3: "0x71")
# => [71, 57, 113]
IntegerInteraction.run!(limit1: "08", limit2: "08", limit3: "08")
ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Limit2 is not a valid integer, Limit3 is not a valid integer

Advanced Filters

Interface

Interface filters allow you to specify an interface that the passed value must meet in order to pass. The name of the interface is used to look for a constant inside the ancestor listing for the passed value. This allows for a variety of checks depending on what's passed. Class instances are checked for an included module or an inherited ancestor class. Classes are checked for an extended module or an inherited ancestor class. Modules are checked for an extended module.

class InterfaceInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  interface :exception

  def execute
    exception
  end
end

InterfaceInteraction.run!(exception: Exception)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Exception is not a valid interface
InterfaceInteraction.run!(exception: NameError) # a subclass of Exception
# => NameError

You can use :from to specify a class or module. This would be the equivalent of what's above.

class InterfaceInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  interface :error,
    from: Exception

  def execute
    error
  end
end

You can also create an anonymous interface on the fly by passing the methods option.

class InterfaceInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  interface :serializer,
    methods: %i[dump load]

  def execute
    input = '{ "is_json" : true }'
    object = serializer.load(input)
    output = serializer.dump(object)

    output
  end
end

require 'json'

InterfaceInteraction.run!(serializer: Object.new)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Serializer is not a valid interface
InterfaceInteraction.run!(serializer: JSON)
# => "{\"is_json\":true}"

Object

Object filters allow you to require an instance of a particular class or one of its subclasses.

class Cow
  def moo
    'Moo!'
  end
end

class ObjectInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :cow

  def execute
    cow.moo
  end
end

ObjectInteraction.run!(cow: Object.new)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Cow is not a valid object
ObjectInteraction.run!(cow: Cow.new)
# => "Moo!"

The class name is automatically determined by the filter name. If your filter name is different than your class name, use the class option. It can be either the class, a string, or a symbol.

object :dolly1,
  class: Sheep
object :dolly2,
  class: 'Sheep'
object :dolly3,
  class: :Sheep

If you have value objects or you would like to build one object from another, you can use the converter option. It is only called if the value provided is not an instance of the class or one of its subclasses. The converter option accepts a symbol that specifies a class method on the object class or a proc. Both will be passed the value and any errors thrown inside the converter will cause the value to be considered invalid. Any returned value that is not the correct class will also be treated as invalid. Any default that is not an instance of the class or subclass and is not nil will also be converted.

class ObjectInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :ip_address,
    class: IPAddr,
    converter: :new

  def execute
    ip_address
  end
end

ObjectInteraction.run!(ip_address: '192.168.1.1')
# #<IPAddr: IPv4:192.168.1.1/255.255.255.255>

ObjectInteraction.run!(ip_address: 1)
# ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError: Ip address is not a valid object

Record

Record filters allow you to require an instance of a particular class (or one of its subclasses) or a value that can be used to locate an instance of the object. If the value does not match, it will call find on the class of the record. This is particularly useful when working with ActiveRecord objects. Like an object filter, the class is derived from the name passed but can be specified with the class option. Any default that is not an instance of the class or subclass and is not nil will also be found. Blank strings passed in will be treated as nil.

class RecordInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  record :encoding

  def execute
    encoding
  end
end

> RecordInteraction.run!(encoding: Encoding::US_ASCII)
=> #<Encoding:US-ASCII>

> RecordInteraction.run!(encoding: 'ascii')
=> #<Encoding:US-ASCII>

A different method can be specified by providing a symbol to the finder option.

Rails

ActiveInteraction plays nicely with Rails. You can use interactions to handle your business logic instead of models or controllers. To see how it all works, let's take a look at a complete example of a controller with the typical resourceful actions.

Setup

We recommend putting your interactions in app/interactions. It's also very helpful to group them by model. That way you can look in app/interactions/accounts for all the ways you can interact with accounts.

- app/
  - controllers/
    - accounts_controller.rb
  - interactions/
    - accounts/
      - create_account.rb
      - destroy_account.rb
      - find_account.rb
      - list_accounts.rb
      - update_account.rb
  - models/
    - account.rb
  - views/
    - account/
      - edit.html.erb
      - index.html.erb
      - new.html.erb
      - show.html.erb

Controller

Index

# GET /accounts
def index
  @accounts = ListAccounts.run!
end

Since we're not passing any inputs to ListAccounts, it makes sense to use .run! instead of .run. If it failed, that would mean we probably messed up writing the interaction.

class ListAccounts < ActiveInteraction::Base
  def execute
    Account.not_deleted.order(last_name: :asc, first_name: :asc)
  end
end

Show

Up next is the show action. For this one we'll define a helper method to handle raising the correct errors. We have to do this because calling .run! would raise an ActiveInteraction::InvalidInteractionError instead of an ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound. That means Rails would render a 500 instead of a 404.

# GET /accounts/:id
def show
  @account = find_account!
end

private

def find_account!
  outcome = FindAccount.run(params)

  if outcome.valid?
    outcome.result
  else
    fail ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, outcome.errors.full_messages.to_sentence
  end
end

This probably looks a little different than you're used to. Rails commonly handles this with a before_filter that sets the @account instance variable. Why is all this interaction code better? Two reasons: One, you can reuse the FindAccount interaction in other places, like your API controller or a Resque task. And two, if you want to change how accounts are found, you only have to change one place.

Inside the interaction, we could use #find instead of #find_by_id. That way we wouldn't need the #find_account! helper method in the controller because the error would bubble all the way up. However, you should try to avoid raising errors from interactions. If you do, you'll have to deal with raised exceptions as well as the validity of the outcome.

class FindAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  integer :id

  def execute
    account = Account.not_deleted.find_by_id(id)

    if account
      account
    else
      errors.add(:id, 'does not exist')
    end
  end
end

Note that it's perfectly fine to add errors during execution. Not all errors have to come from checking or validation.

New

The new action will be a little different than the ones we've looked at so far. Instead of calling .run or .run!, it's going to initialize a new interaction. This is possible because interactions behave like ActiveModels.

# GET /accounts/new
def new
  @account = CreateAccount.new
end

Since interactions behave like ActiveModels, we can use ActiveModel validations with them. We'll use validations here to make sure that the first and last names are not blank. The validations section goes into more detail about this.

class CreateAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :first_name, :last_name

  validates :first_name, :last_name,
    presence: true

  def to_model
    Account.new
  end

  def execute
    account = Account.new(inputs)

    unless account.save
      errors.merge!(account.errors)
    end

    account
  end
end

We used a couple of advanced features here. The #to_model method helps determine the correct form to use in the view. Check out the section on forms for more about that. Inside #execute, we merge errors. This is a convenient way to move errors from one object to another. Read more about it in the errors section.

Create

The create action has a lot in common with the new action. Both of them use the CreateAccount interaction. And if creating the account fails, this action falls back to rendering the new action.

# POST /accounts
def create
  outcome = CreateAccount.run(params.fetch(:account, {}))

  if outcome.valid?
    redirect_to(outcome.result)
  else
    @account = outcome
    render(:new)
  end
end

Note that we have to pass a hash to .run. Passing nil is an error.

Since we're using an interaction, we don't need strong parameters. The interaction will ignore any inputs that weren't defined by filters. So you can forget about params.require and params.permit because interactions handle that for you.

Destroy

The destroy action will reuse the #find_account! helper method we wrote earlier.

# DELETE /accounts/:id
def destroy
  DestroyAccount.run!(account: find_account!)
  redirect_to(accounts_url)
end

In this simple example, the destroy interaction doesn't do much. It's not clear that you gain anything by putting it in an interaction. But in the future, when you need to do more than account.destroy, you'll only have to update one spot.

class DestroyAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :account

  def execute
    account.destroy
  end
end

Edit

Just like the destroy action, editing uses the #find_account! helper. Then it creates a new interaction instance to use as a form object.

# GET /accounts/:id/edit
def edit
  account = find_account!
  @account = UpdateAccount.new(
    account: account,
    first_name: account.first_name,
    last_name: account.last_name)
end

The interaction that updates accounts is more complicated than the others. It requires an account to update, but the other inputs are optional. If they're missing, it'll ignore those attributes. If they're present, it'll update them.

class UpdateAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :account

  string :first_name, :last_name,
    default: nil

  validates :first_name,
    presence: true,
    unless: -> { first_name.nil? }
  validates :last_name,
    presence: true,
    unless: -> { last_name.nil? }

  def execute
    account.first_name = first_name if first_name.present?
    account.last_name = last_name if last_name.present?

    unless account.save
      errors.merge!(account.errors)
    end

    account
  end
end

Update

Hopefully you've gotten the hang of this by now. We'll use #find_account! to get the account. Then we'll build up the inputs for UpdateAccount. Then we'll run the interaction and either redirect to the updated account or back to the edit page.

# PUT /accounts/:id
def update
  inputs = { account: find_account! }.reverse_merge(params[:account])
  outcome = UpdateAccount.run(inputs)

  if outcome.valid?
    redirect_to(outcome.result)
  else
    @account = outcome
    render(:edit)
  end
end

Advanced usage

Callbacks

ActiveSupport::Callbacks provides a powerful framework for defining callbacks. ActiveInteraction uses that framework to allow hooking into various parts of an interaction's lifecycle.

class Increment < ActiveInteraction::Base
  set_callback :filter, :before, -> { puts 'before filter' }

  integer :x

  set_callback :validate, :after, -> { puts 'after validate' }

  validates :x,
    numericality: { greater_than_or_equal_to: 0 }

  set_callback :execute, :around, lambda { |_interaction, block|
    puts '>>>'
    block.call
    puts '<<<'
  }

  def execute
    puts 'executing'
    x + 1
  end
end

Increment.run!(x: 1)
# before filter
# after validate
# >>>
# executing
# <<<
# => 2

In order, the available callbacks are filter, validate, and execute. You can set before, after, or around on any of them.

Composition

You can run interactions from within other interactions with #compose. If the interaction is successful, it'll return the result (just like if you had called it with .run!). If something went wrong, execution will halt immediately and the errors will be moved onto the caller.

class Add < ActiveInteraction::Base
  integer :x, :y

  def execute
    x + y
  end
end

class AddThree < ActiveInteraction::Base
  integer :x

  def execute
    compose(Add, x: x, y: 3)
  end
end

AddThree.run!(x: 5)
# => 8

To bring in filters from another interaction, use .import_filters. Combined with inputs, delegating to another interaction is a piece of cake.

class AddAndDouble < ActiveInteraction::Base
  import_filters Add

  def execute
    compose(Add, inputs) * 2
  end
end

Note that errors in composed interactions have a few tricky cases. See the errors section for more information about them.

Defaults

The default value for an input can take on many different forms. Setting the default to nil makes the input optional. Setting it to some value makes that the default value for that input. Setting it to a lambda will lazily set the default value for that input. That means the value will be computed when the interaction is run, as opposed to when it is defined.

Lambda defaults are evaluated in the context of the interaction, so you can use the values of other inputs in them.

# This input is optional.
time :a, default: nil
# This input defaults to `Time.at(123)`.
time :b, default: Time.at(123)
# This input lazily defaults to `Time.now`.
time :c, default: -> { Time.now }
# This input defaults to the value of `c` plus 10 seconds.
time :d, default: -> { c + 10 }

Descriptions

Use the desc option to provide human-readable descriptions of filters. You should prefer these to comments because they can be used to generate documentation. The interaction class has a .filters method that returns a hash of filters. Each filter has a #desc method that returns the description.

class Descriptive < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :first_name,
    desc: 'your first name'
  string :last_name,
    desc: 'your last name'
end

Descriptive.filters.each do |name, filter|
  puts "#{name}: #{filter.desc}"
end
# first_name: your first name
# last_name: your last name

Errors

ActiveInteraction provides detailed errors for easier introspection and testing of errors. Detailed errors improve on regular errors by adding a symbol that represents the type of error that has occurred. Let's look at an example where an item is purchased using a credit card.

class BuyItem < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :credit_card, :item
  hash :options do
    boolean :gift_wrapped
  end

  def execute
    order = credit_card.purchase(item)
    notify(credit_card.account)
    order
  end

  private def notify(account)
    # ...
  end
end

Having missing or invalid inputs causes the interaction to fail and return errors.

outcome = BuyItem.run(item: 'Thing', options: { gift_wrapped: 'yes' })
outcome.errors.messages
# => {:credit_card=>["is required"], :item=>["is not a valid object"], :"options.gift_wrapped"=>["is not a valid boolean"]}

Determining the type of error based on the string is difficult if not impossible. Calling #details instead of #messages on errors gives you the same list of errors with a testable label representing the error.

outcome.errors.details
# => {:credit_card=>[{:error=>:missing}], :item=>[{:error=>:invalid_type, :type=>"object"}], :"options.gift_wrapped"=>[{:error=>:invalid_type, :type=>"boolean"}]}

Detailed errors can also be manually added during the execute call by passing a symbol to #add instead of a string.

def execute
  errors.add(:monster, :no_passage)
end

ActiveInteraction also supports merging errors. This is useful if you want to delegate validation to some other object. For example, if you have an interaction that updates a record, you might want that record to validate itself. By using the #merge! helper on errors, you can do exactly that.

class UpdateThing < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :thing

  def execute
    unless thing.save
      errors.merge!(thing.errors)
    end

    thing
  end
end

When a composed interaction fails, its errors are merged onto the caller. This generally produces good error messages, but there are a few cases to look out for.

class Inner < ActiveInteraction::Base
  boolean :x, :y
end

class Outer < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :x
  boolean :z, default: nil

  def execute
    compose(Inner, x: x, y: z)
  end
end

outcome = Outer.run(x: 'yes')
outcome.errors.details
# => { :x    => [{ :error => :invalid_type, :type => "boolean" }],
#      :base => [{ :error => "Y is required" }] }
outcome.errors.full_messages.join(' and ')
# => "X is not a valid boolean and Y is required"

Since both interactions have an input called x, the inner error for that input is moved to the x error on the outer interaction. This results in a misleading error that claims the input x is not a valid boolean even though it's a string on the outer interaction.

Since only the inner interaction has an input called y, the inner error for that input is moved to the base error on the outer interaction. This results in a confusing error that claims the input y is required even though it's not present on the outer interaction.

Forms

The outcome returned by .run can be used in forms as though it were an ActiveModel object. You can also create a form object by calling .new on the interaction.

Given an application with an Account model we'll create a new Account using the CreateAccount interaction.

# GET /accounts/new
def new
  @account = CreateAccount.new
end

# POST /accounts
def create
  outcome = CreateAccount.run(params.fetch(:account, {}))

  if outcome.valid?
    redirect_to(outcome.result)
  else
    @account = outcome
    render(:new)
  end
end

The form used to create a new Account has slightly more information on the form_for call than you might expect.

<%= form_for @account, as: :account, url: accounts_path do |f| %>
  <%= f.text_field :first_name %>
  <%= f.text_field :last_name %>
  <%= f.submit 'Create' %>
<% end %>

This is necessary because we want the form to act like it is creating a new Account. Defining to_model on the CreateAccount interaction tells the form to treat our interaction like an Account.

class CreateAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  # ...

  def to_model
    Account.new
  end
end

Now our form_for call knows how to generate the correct URL and param name (i.e. params[:account]).

# app/views/accounts/new.html.erb
<%= form_for @account do |f| %>
  <%# ... %>
<% end %>

If you have an interaction that updates an Account, you can define to_model to return the object you're updating.

class UpdateAccount < ActiveInteraction::Base
  # ...

  object :account

  def to_model
    account
  end
end

ActiveInteraction also supports formtastic and simple_form. The filters used to define the inputs on your interaction will relay type information to these gems. As a result, form fields will automatically use the appropriate input type.

Shared input options

It can be convenient to apply the same options to a bunch of inputs. One common use case is making many inputs optional. Instead of setting default: nil on each one of them, you can use with_options to reduce duplication.

with_options default: nil do
  date :birthday
  string :name
  boolean :wants_cake
end

Optional inputs

Optional inputs can be defined by using the :default option as described in the filters section. Within the interaction, provided and default values are merged to create inputs. There are times where it is useful to know whether a value was passed to run or the result of a filter default. In particular, it is useful when nil is an acceptable value. For example, you may optionally track your users' birthdays. You can use the inputs.given? predicate to see if an input was even passed to run. With inputs.given? you can also check the input of a hash or array filter by passing a series of keys or indexes to check.

class UpdateUser < ActiveInteraction::Base
  object :user
  date :birthday,
    default: nil

  def execute
    user.birthday = birthday if inputs.given?(:birthday)
    errors.merge!(user.errors) unless user.save
    user
  end
end

Now you have a few options. If you don't want to update their birthday, leave it out of the hash. If you want to remove their birthday, set birthday: nil. And if you want to update it, pass in the new value as usual.

user = User.find(...)

# Don't update their birthday.
UpdateUser.run!(user: user)

# Remove their birthday.
UpdateUser.run!(user: user, birthday: nil)

# Update their birthday.
UpdateUser.run!(user: user, birthday: Date.new(2000, 1, 2))

Translations

ActiveInteraction is i18n aware out of the box! All you have to do is add translations to your project. In Rails, these typically go into config/locales. For example, let's say that for some reason you want to print everything out backwards. Simply add translations for ActiveInteraction to your hsilgne locale.

# config/locales/hsilgne.yml
hsilgne:
  active_interaction:
    types:
      array: yarra
      boolean: naeloob
      date: etad
      date_time: emit etad
      decimal: lamiced
      file: elif
      float: taolf
      hash: hsah
      integer: regetni
      interface: ecafretni
      object: tcejbo
      string: gnirts
      symbol: lobmys
      time: emit
    errors:
      messages:
        invalid: dilavni si
        invalid_type: '%{type} dilav a ton si'
        missing: deriuqer si

Then set your locale and run interactions like normal.

class I18nInteraction < ActiveInteraction::Base
  string :name
end

I18nInteraction.run(name: false).errors.messages[:name]
# => ["is not a valid string"]

I18n.locale = :hsilgne
I18nInteraction.run(name: false).errors.messages[:name]
# => ["gnirts dilav a ton si"]

Everything else works like an activerecord entry. For example, to rename an attribute you can use attributes.

Here we'll rename the num attribute on an interaction named product:

en:
  active_interaction:
    attributes:
      product:
        num: 'Number'

Credits

ActiveInteraction is brought to you by Aaron Lasseigne. Along with Aaron, Taylor Fausak helped create and maintain ActiveInteraction but has since moved on.

If you want to contribute to ActiveInteraction, please read our contribution guidelines. A complete list of contributors is available on GitHub.

ActiveInteraction is licensed under the MIT License.

---

Author: AaronLasseigne
Source code: https://github.com/AaronLasseigne/active_interaction
License: MIT license

#ruby