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What is the difference between NaN and Inf, and NULL and NA in R?
Why ?NA and ?NULL tell me that "NA" has a length of "1" whereas NULL has a length of "0"?
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NA and “NA” (as presented as string) are not interchangeable. NA stands for Not Available. NaN stands for Not A Number and is a logical vector of a length 1 and applies to numerical values, as well as real and imaginary parts of complex values, but not to values of integer vector. NaN is a reserved word.
A NAN value in R represents “NOT A NUMBER”, It is basically any numeric calculations with an undefined result, such as '0/0'. This exists only in vectors with numeric datatype. A NA value in R represents "NOT AVAILABLE". This can exist in any sort of numeric or character vectors.
In simple words, NULL represents the null or an empty object in R. NA represents a missing value in R. NA can be updated in R by vectors, list and other R objects whereas NULL cannot be coerced.
NaN : means 0/0 -- Stands for Not a Number NA : is generally interpreted as a missing, does not exist NULL : is for empty object.
In short
NaN : means 0/0 -- Stands for Not a Number NA : is generally interpreted as a missing, does not exist NULL : is for empty object. For an exact definition, you can read the documentation, which is very well written.
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In R language, there are two closely related null-like values: NA and NULL. Both are used to represent missing or undefined values.
NULL represents the null object, it's a reserved word. NULL is perhaps returned by expressions and functions, so that values are undefined.
NA is a logical constant of length 1, which contains a missing value indicator. NA can be freely coerced to any other vector type except raw. There are also constants NA_integer_, NA_real_, NA_complex_ and NA_character_ of the other atomic vector types which support missing values: all of these are reserved words in the R language.
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