Identical function in R
Identical function in R is one of the best way to test whether two objects are exactly equal. R Identical function, returns TRUE when two objects are equal and it returns FALSE when two objects are not equal.
Syntax for identical function in R
Identical(x, y, num.eq = TRUE)
| x,y | R Objects |
| num.eq | Default value is TRUE, when FALSE identifies the difference between -0 and 0 |
Example of identical function in R:
identical(2,2)
[1] TRUE
# R identical function with arithmetic operation identical(2,8/4)
[1] TRUE
# Identical function comparing numeric and character object
identical("2",2)
[1] FALSE
# Identical function comparing Infinity and –Infinity identical(Inf,-Inf)
[1] FALSE
# Identical function comparing 0 and -0 identical(0,-0)
[1] TRUE
Logically the above example sounds TRUE, but still if you want to differentiate between -0 and 0 you can use num.eq=FALSE argument in identical function
# R Identical function with num.eq=FALSE identical(0,-0, num.eq=FALSE)
So the output will be
[1] FALSE
Example of identical function in R for vectors:
# R Identical function for vectors a = c(1,2,4,5) b = c(1,5,4,2) identical(a,b)
[1] FALSE
a = c(1,2,4,5) b = c(1,2,4,5) identical(a,b)
[1] TRUE
