A vector is a list of items that are of the same type. A vector is similar to a list in R, but not the same. A vector is a data structure. To combine the list of items to a vector, use the c() function and separate the items by a comma.

# Vector of characters/strings
gemstones <- c("jade", "ruby", "sapphire", "amethyst", "topaz", "emerald")
# Print gems
gemstones

There are two types of vectors in R. These two below are from w3schools.com.

• Atomic vectors, of which there are six types: logical, integer, double, character, complex, and raw. Integer and double vectors are collectively known as numeric vectors.
• Lists, which are sometimes called recursive vectors because lists can contain other lists.

Every vector has two key properties, its type, and its length.

library(tidyverse)
# gemstone
gemid <- c(1:6)
gemstones <- c("jade", "ruby", "sapphire", "amethyst", "topaz", "emerald")
gemhard <- c(6.5, 9.0, 7.5, 7.0, 8.0, 7.75)
gem <- data.frame(gemid, gemstones,gemhard)
View(gem)
gem2 <- gem %>% arrange(gemhard)  # the default is ascending
View(gem2)
gem3 <- gem %>% arrange(desc(gemhard))
View(gem3)
typeof(gem$gemstones)
length(gem$gemstones)
typeof(gem$gemhard)

The first typeof() function returns ‘character” and the length() function returns 6. The second typeof() function returns “double”.