Loading and observing data

In this recipe, we will see how to load and view survival data. We will create a response object to fit in the survival model.

Getting ready

This recipe requires survival package, as we will be using a dataset from it.

How to do it...

Perform the following steps to perform survival analysis:

1. You should install the survival package and load its library:

> install.packages("survival")> library(survival)

2. From the package, you can load the cancer dataset:

        > data(cancer)  

3. You can use the str function to display the structure of the cancer dataset:

        > str(cancer)
        Output  
        'data.frame':    228 obs. of  10 variables:
         $ inst     : num  3 3 3 5 1 12 7 11 1 7 ...
         $ time     : num  306 455 1010 210 883 ...
         $ status   : num  2 2 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 2 ...
         $ age      : num  74 68 56 57 60 74 68 71 53 61 ...
         $ sex      : num  1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 ...
         $ ph.ecog  : num  1 0 0 1 0 1 2 2 1 2 ...
    ...