Description of numeric variables

Description

Describes a numeric variable.

Usage

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

Arguments

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")

Results