whatis | R Documentation |
Summarize the characteristics of variables (columns) in a data frame.
whatis(x, var.name.truncate = 20, type.truncate = 14)
x |
a data frame |
var.name.truncate |
maximum length (in characters) for truncation of variable names. The default is 20; anything less than 12 is less than the column label in the resulting data frame and is a waste of information. |
type.truncate |
maximum length (in characters) for truncation of
variable type; |
The function whatis()
provides a basic examination of some
characteristics of each variable (column) in a data frame.
A list of characteristics describing the variables in the data
frame, x
. Each component of the list has length(x)
values, one for each variable in the data frame x
.
from the names(x)
attribute, possibly
truncated to var.name.truncate
characters in length.
the possibilities include "pure factor"
,
"mixed factor"
, "ordered factor"
, "character"
,
and "numeric"
; whatis()
considers the possibility that a
factor or a vector could contain character and/or numeric values.
If both character and numeric values are present, and if the variable
is a factor, then it is called a mixed factor. If the levels of a
factor are purely character or numeric (but not both), it is a pure
factor. Non-factors must then be either character or numeric.
the number of NA
s in the variable.
the number of distinct values in the variable,
equal to length(table(variable))
.
the number of decimal places of precision.
the minumum value (if numeric) or first value (alphabetically) as appropriate.
the maximum value (if numeric) or the last value (alphabetically) as appropriate.
John W. Emerson, Walton Green
Special thanks to John Hartigan and the students of
'Statistical Case Studies' of 2004 for their help troubleshooting
and developing the function whatis()
.
See also str
.
mydf <- data.frame(a=rnorm(100), b=sample(c("Cat", "Dog"), 100, replace=TRUE), c=sample(c("Apple", "Orange", "8"), 100, replace=TRUE), d=sample(c("Blue", "Red"), 100, replace=TRUE)) mydf$d <- as.character(mydf$d) whatis(mydf) data(iris) whatis(iris)
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