cachematrix.R

## Matrix inversion is usually a costly computation and there may be some benefit to caching the inverse of a matrix rather than computing it repeatedly
## Thes pair of functions implement the  cache the inverse of a matrix

## The first function, makeCacheMatrix creates a special "vector", which is really a list containing a function to
## 1.set the value of the vector
## 2.get the value of the vector
## 3.set the value of the mean
## 4.get the value of the mean

makeCacheMatrix <- function(x = matrix()) {
        
        m <- NULL
        set <- function(y) {
                x <<- y
                m <<- NULL
        }
        get <- function() x
        setinverse <- function(inverse) m <<- inverse
        getinverse <- function() m
        list(set=set, get=get, setinverse=setinverse, getinverse=getinverse)
}


## The following function returns the inverse of the matrix. It first checks if
## the inverse has already been computed. If so, it gets the result and skips the
## computation. If not, it computes the inverse, sets the value in the cache via
## setinverse function

cacheSolve <- function(x, ...) {
        ## Return a matrix that is the inverse of 'x'
        m <- x$getinverse()
        if(!is.null(m)) {
                message("getting cached data.")
                return(m)
        }
        data <- x$get()
        m <- solve(data)
        x$setinverse(m)
        m
}