describe.numeric {prettyR}

Description of numeric variables

Description

Describes a numeric variable.

Usage

 describe.numeric(x,varname="",
  num.desc=c("mean","median","var","sd","valid.n"))

Arguments

x

A numeric vector.

varname

The variable name to display.

num.desc

The names of the functions to apply to the vector.

Details

‘⁠describe.numeric⁠’ displays the name of the vector and the results of the functions whose names are passed in ‘⁠num.desc⁠’. Note that any functions that are called by ‘⁠describe.numeric⁠’ must have an ‘⁠na.rm⁠’ argument, even if it is a dummy.

Value

The vector of values returned from the functions in ‘⁠num.desc⁠’.

Author(s)

Jim Lemon

See Also

describe, valid.n

Examples

 x<-rnorm(100)
 # include a function that calculates the "smoothness" of a vector
 # of numbers by calculating the mean of the absolute difference
 # between each successive value - all values equal would be 0
 smoothness<-function(x,na.rm=TRUE) {
  if(na.rm) x<-x[!is.na(x)]
  xspan<-diff(range(x))
  return(mean(abs(diff(x))/xspan,na.rm=TRUE))
 }
 describe(x,num.desc=c("mean","median","smoothness"),xname="x")
 # now sort the values to make the vector "smoother"
 describe(sort(x),num.desc=c("mean","median","smoothness"),xname="x")