How do R Data Frames handle different data types within the same structure?

R data frames are unique in that each column within the same structure can have a different data type. This allows data frames to store and manage diverse datasets where each variable (column) might represent a different type of data, such as numbers, strings, or factors.

# Creating a data frame with different data types
my_data_frame <- data.frame(
    Name = c("Alice", "Bob", "Charlie"),
    Age = c(25, 30, 35),
    Is_Employed = c(TRUE, FALSE, TRUE)
)

# Checking the structure of the data frame
str(my_data_frame)

# Output:
# 'data.frame': 3 obs. of  3 variables:
#  $ Name       : chr  "Alice" "Bob" "Charlie"
#  $ Age        : num  25 30 35
#  $ Is_Employed: logi  TRUE FALSE TRUE

In this example, the data frame my_data_frame contains a character column (Name), a numeric column (Age), and a logical column (Is_Employed). This flexibility makes data frames the preferred structure for handling real-world datasets that contain a variety of data types, such as survey results, experimental data, or financial records.