R devel - Mar 2012 - print method for summary adds trailing zero

Dear R-devel

Thought I better report this. An example is shown below.
> vec <- rnorm(100)+10.5
> ss <- summary(vec)
> print(ss)
   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
  8.433   9.886  10.450  10.560  11.300  12.720
> for(kk in 1:length(ss)) print(ss[[kk]])
[1] 8.433
[1] 9.886
[1] 10.45
[1] 10.56
[1] 11.3
[1] 12.72
> print(mean(vec))
[1] 10.56399

Note the difference between 10.56399 and 10.560.
It may confuse users that the number of significant digits is smaller than the
number of digits shown by the print of a summary object (at least it confused
me).

Yours
Ole F. Christensen

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On Mar 2, 2012, at 8:57 AM, Ole Fredslund Christensen wrote:
> Dear R-devel
> 
> Thought I better report this. An example is shown below.
> 
>> vec <- rnorm(100)+10.5
>> ss <- summary(vec)
>> print(ss)
>   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.
>  8.433   9.886  10.450  10.560  11.300  12.720
>> for(kk in 1:length(ss)) print(ss[[kk]])
> [1] 8.433
> [1] 9.886
> [1] 10.45
> [1] 10.56
> [1] 11.3
> [1] 12.72
>> print(mean(vec))
> [1] 10.56399
> 
> Note the difference between 10.56399 and 10.560.
> It may confuse users that the number of significant digits is smaller than
the number of digits shown by the print of a summary object (at least it
confused me).
> 
Well, that's not even the really confusing one -- thy this:
> vec <- round((rnorm(100)+10.5)*100000)
> summary(vec)
   Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
 768000  966000 1053000 1048000 1107000 1316000 
> max(vec)
[1] 1315985

That's the point at which you decide never to use summary() again ;).

Cheers,
Simon