What is the difference between list and vector in R

Question

What is the difference between the list and vector in R?

Answer 1

The difference are -

• A list holds different data such as Numeric, Character, logical, etc. Vector stores elements of the same type or converts implicitly.
• Lists are recursive, whereas vector is not.
• The vector is one-dimensional, whereas the list is a multidimensional object.

Comments

What do you mean by recursive? Kindly explain it in detail.

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Hi,

• In a recursive function (recursion), function calls itself. To solve any we break the programs into smaller sub-programs.

eg: 

5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120

• The problem of getting a factorial of 5 is broken down into a sub-problem of multiplying the factorial of 4and 3.
• Recursive functions call themselves. They break down the problem into the smallest possible components. The function() calls itself within the original function() on each of the smaller components. 
• Due to this capability of containing other lists within themselves (lists), lists are considered as the recursive variables.

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