Showing communities in a network with the linkcomm package

The linkcomm package is an R package developed with the main aim of letting you discover and study communities that exist within your network. These communities are discovered by applying an algorithm derived from the paper Link communities reveal multiscale complexity in networks by Ahn Y.Y., Bagrow J.P., and Lehmann.

Getting ready

In order to use linkcomm functionalities, we first need to install and load the linkcomm package:

install.packages("linkcomm")
library(linkcomm)

As a sample dataset, we will use the lesmiserables hedge list, provided in the linkcomm package. This dataset basically shows relations hips between characters in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables.

You can get a sense of the dataset by running str() on it:

> str(lesmiserables)
'data.frame':  254 obs. of  2 variables:
 $ V1: Factor w/ 73 levels "Anzelma","Babet",..: 61 49 55 55 21 33 12 23 20 62 ...
$ V2: Factor w/ 49 levels "Babet","Bahorel",..: 42 42 42 36 42...