range()

range(..., na.rm = FALSE)

The range() function returns a numeric vector of length two containing the minimum and maximum values of the input. It works on numeric vectors, integers, and character vectors (using alphabetical ordering).

Syntax

range(x, na.rm = FALSE, ...)

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
x	numeric, integer, or character	—	A vector for which to find the min and max
na.rm	logical	FALSE	If TRUE, remove NA values before computing
...	additional arguments	—	Optional arguments passed to min() or max()

Examples

Basic usage

# Numeric vector
x <- c(3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6)
range(x)
# [1] 1 9

With NA values

# Without removing NAs (default)
y <- c(1, 2, NA, 4, 5)
range(y)
# [1] NA NA

# With na.rm = TRUE
range(y, na.rm = TRUE)
# [1] 1 5

Character vectors

# Strings are sorted alphabetically
chars <- c("banana", "apple", "cherry", "date")
range(chars)
# [1] "apple"  "date"

Common Patterns

Checking if values fall within a range

x <- c(1, 5, 10, 15, 20)
r <- range(x)
x >= r[1] & x <= r[2]
# [1] TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE TRUE

Scaling data using range

# Normalize to 0-1 scale
x <- c(10, 20, 30, 40, 50)
r <- range(x)
(x - r[1]) / (r[2] - r[1])
# [1] 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00

See Also

• base::min
• base::max
• base::mean