Question

What does the inf special character mean in R as I've never heard of this one in any other language..

Answer 1

inf stands for infinity and only applies to vectors of class numeric. A vector of class integer can never be Inf. This is because the Inf in R is directly derived from the international standard for floating point arithmetic 1 . Technically, Inf is a valid numeric that results from calculations like division of a number by zero. Since Inf is a numeric, operations between Inf and a finite numeric are well-defined and comparison operators work as expected.