Programming language · 1993

R

Programming language for statistical analysis.

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C, FortranWritten in
1993First released
Ross Ihaka and Robert GentlemanDeveloper
dynamicTyping
GNU General Public License, version 2.0License
Built from R CFortranSLisp
RuntimeInfluence

What is R written in?

Its runtime is implemented in C and Fortran (documented).

What R is used for

R is a language built for statistics, data analysis, and visualization, used heavily in academia, bioinformatics, and quantitative research. The tidyverse and ggplot2 make it a favorite for exploratory analysis and publication-quality charts.

Notable software: statistical analyses across science and finance, and reproducible reports built with R Markdown and Shiny dashboards.

Quick Facts

Designed by
Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman
First released
1993
Typing
dynamic
License
GNU General Public License, version 2.0

About R

R is a programming language for statistical analysis. It is a dynamically typed and garbage-collected language that is executed directly by an interpreter. It supports functional and imperative programming.

R first appeared in 1993 and was designed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman. R has a large, active user base today.

How R is implemented

In the Language Lineage dataset, its runtime is implemented in C and Fortran.

R in the language family tree

R drew on ideas from Lisp and S.

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata · Official site

Frequently Asked Questions

What language is R written in?
R is primarily implemented in C and Fortran. See the implementation section above for details and source references.
What languages influenced R?
R was influenced by Lisp, S among others. See the influence section above for the full list.
When was R first released?
R was first released in 1993. It was designed by Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman.

Evidence Sources

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<iframe src="https://www.languagelineage.org/embed?lang=r" width="100%" height="500" loading="lazy" style="border:0" title="R relationship graph"></iframe>

Please attribute the visualization to Language Lineage and link to the R source record.

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