tan()

tan(x)

The tan() function computes the trigonometric tangent of numeric values in R. It operates element-wise on vectors and accepts angles in radians.

Syntax

tan(x)

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
x	numeric	—	Numeric vector or single value representing an angle in radians

Examples

Basic usage

# Compute tangent for a single angle (pi/4 = 45 degrees)
tan(pi / 4)
# [1] 1

tan(0)
# [1] 0

tan(pi)
# [1] 1.224606e-16  # essentially 0

Working with vectors

# Compute tangent for multiple angles
angles <- c(0, pi/6, pi/4, pi/3, pi/2)
tan(angles)
# [1] 0.0000000 0.5773503 1.0000000 1.7320508        Inf

Note that tan(pi/2) returns Infinity because cosine is zero at π/2.

Converting degrees to radians

# Convert degrees to radians before using trig functions
deg_to_rad <- function(deg) deg * pi / 180

tan(deg_to_rad(45))
# [1] 1

tan(deg_to_rad(30))
# [1] 0.5773503

Common Patterns

Creating periodic data

# Generate tangent wave (avoid pi/2 multiples)
x <- seq(0, pi/2 - 0.1, length.out = 50)
y <- tan(x)
plot(x, y, type = "l")

See Also

• base::sin
• base::cos