We can find the minimum and the maximum of a vector using the min() or the max() function.
A function called range() is also available which returns the minimum and maximum in a two element vector.
Example: Find Minimum and Maximum
> x
[1] 5 8 3 9 2 7 4 6 10
> # find the minimum
> min(x)
[1] 2
> # find the maximum
> max(x)
[1] 10
> # find the range
> range(x)
[1] 2 10
If we want to find where the minimum or maximum is located, i.e. the index instead of the actual value, then we can use which.min() and which.max() functions.
Note that these functions will return the index of the first minimum or maximum in case multiple of them exists.
> x
[1] 5 8 3 9 2 7 4 6 10
> # find index of the minimum
> which.min(x)
[1] 5
> # find index of the minimum
> which.max(x)
[1] 9
> # alternate way to find the minimum
> x[which.min(x)]
[1] 2