1.8 - Schematic of R Work-flow

Console, workspace, scriptfile, history....it all sounds confusing at first. This diagram might help clear thing up:

The console is where you interact with R - where commands are entered and results displayed.The workspace is where all the things R has in memory are stored. From the console the user creates and interacts with objects in the workspace. These interactions can be automated using scripts (these are just text files saved with a .R file extension rather than the standard .txt). An entire script can be run automatically (this is called "sourcing", and is done using the command "source()"). Or selected lines from a script can be run. The history records commands from the console - they can be retrieved using the up and down arrow keys (some R interfaces also have a history browser). Using the history can save a lot of typing. External data files can be read to and written from the workspace by entering commands in the console.