R help - Aug 2012 - Printing a summary

All,

Is this typical of how people will print a summary of results?

CoinTosses <- function(n) {
  x <- sample(c(0,1), n, replace=TRUE)
  y <- x
  y[y==0] <- "T"
  y[y==1] <- "H"
  numHeads <- sum(x)
  numTails <- n-sum(x)
  p <- numHeads/n
  cat(cat(y,sep=""),"\n")
  cat("Number of heads: ", numHeads, "\n")
  cat("Number of tails: ", numTails, "\n")
  cat("The proportion of heads is: ", p, "\n")
}

CoinTosses(40)

Or is another technique preferred?

Thanks.

David



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On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 3:34 PM, darnold <dwarnold45 at suddenlink.net>
wrote:
> All,
>
> Is this typical of how people will print a summary of results?
>
> CoinTosses <- function(n) {
>   x <- sample(c(0,1), n, replace=TRUE)
>   y <- x
>   y[y==0] <- "T"
>   y[y==1] <- "H"
>   numHeads <- sum(x)
>   numTails <- n-sum(x)
>   p <- numHeads/n
>   cat(cat(y,sep=""),"\n")
>   cat("Number of heads: ", numHeads, "\n")
>   cat("Number of tails: ", numTails, "\n")
>   cat("The proportion of heads is: ", p, "\n")
> }
>
> CoinTosses(40)
>
> Or is another technique preferred?
cat() is certainly a reasonable way to print results (print might also
work) -- really whatever works for you, though I might prefer your
function only return the values and that those are printed
automatically at the top level.

Also, I'm not sure if this is what you're getting at so feel free to
ignore it if I'm off base, but

http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#How-should-I-write-summary-methods_003f

Best,
Michael

>
> Thanks.
>
> David
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Printing-a-summary-tp4639104.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
> ______________________________________________
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

Hi,

I find it better to return a named list so that users can do what they
want with the results rather than just looking at them, which is all
your approach allows. That's not incompatible with printing the
results to the screen as well:

 CoinTosses <- function(n, verbose=TRUE) {
   x <- sample(c(0,1), n, replace=TRUE)
   y <- x
   y[y==0] <- "T"
   y[y==1] <- "H"
   numHeads <- sum(x)
   numTails <- n-sum(x)
   p <- numHeads/n
   if(verbose) {
      cat(cat(y,sep=""),"\n")
      cat("Number of heads: ", numHeads, "\n")
      cat("Number of tails: ", numTails, "\n")
      cat("The proportion of heads is: ", p, "\n")
   }
   list(numHeads = numHeads, numTails = numTails, p = p)
}

Sarah

On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 4:34 PM, darnold <dwarnold45 at suddenlink.net>
wrote:
> All,
>
> Is this typical of how people will print a summary of results?
>
> CoinTosses <- function(n) {
>   x <- sample(c(0,1), n, replace=TRUE)
>   y <- x
>   y[y==0] <- "T"
>   y[y==1] <- "H"
>   numHeads <- sum(x)
>   numTails <- n-sum(x)
>   p <- numHeads/n
>   cat(cat(y,sep=""),"\n")
>   cat("Number of heads: ", numHeads, "\n")
>   cat("Number of tails: ", numTails, "\n")
>   cat("The proportion of heads is: ", p, "\n")
> }
>
> CoinTosses(40)
> Or is another technique preferred?
>
> Thanks.
>
> David
>
>
-- 
Sarah Goslee
http://www.functionaldiversity.org