How do I manipulate/access elements of an instance of “dist” class using core R?

Question

A basic/common class in R is called \"dist\", and is a relatively efficient representation of a symmetric distance matrix. Unlike a \"matrix\" object,

Answer 1

as.matrix(d) will turn the dist object d into a matrix, while as.dist(m) will turn the matrix m back into a dist object. Note that the latter doesn't actually check that m is a valid distance matrix; it just extracts the lower triangular part.