R help - Apr 2010 - Question about R mode

Hello all,

I am using R to perform certain calculations on huge amounts of data.  In short
I need a function that does the mode function, ie returns the most common
element.  I looked at the mode function in R but it seems to return the type of
the data element you give it.  Does such a method exist?  I have tried googling
this to no avail as all the results lead me back to the mode function I do not
want.

Thanks,

Don
 		 	   		  
	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

djackson at miners.utep.edu wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am using R to perform certain calculations on huge amounts of data.  In
short I need a function that does the mode function, ie returns the most common
element.  I looked at the mode function in R but it seems to return the type of
the data element you give it.  Does such a method exist?  I have tried googling
this to no avail as all the results lead me back to the mode function I do not
want.
>   
I googled for "R calculate mode", the first hit was this result:

http://www.mail-archive.com/r-help at r-project.org/msg30197.html

this is probably what you want.

cheers,
Paul
> Thanks,
>
> Don
>  		 	   		  
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>   
-- 
Drs. Paul Hiemstra
Department of Physical Geography
Faculty of Geosciences
University of Utrecht
Heidelberglaan 2
P.O. Box 80.115
3508 TC Utrecht
Phone:  +3130 274 3113 Mon-Tue
Phone:  +3130 253 5773 Wed-Fri
http://intamap.geo.uu.nl/~paul
http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/paul-hiemstra/20/30b/770

The mode is a well defined concept for theoretical distributions, but much less
well defined when applied to data.  Some attempts at getting the mode of data
actually returns a quirk of rounding rather than anything informative about the
data and the distribution that it represents.  This is especially true when the
data is supposed to represent and underlying continuous distribution.  If the
theorized distribution is discrete (Poisson, binomial, etc.) then the mode may
be more meaningful (but can still be the result of a quirk of rounding).  For
discrete distributions you can just use the table function to get all the counts
and look for the largest (and look for other similar values to see if your
single "mode" is really meaningful).  For continuous distributions you
need to decide what you really want and what level of approximation you are
willing to live with and what assumptions you are willing to make (one simple
approach is just look at the histogram, if there is a clear peak, then that
gives you a modal range).


-- 
Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D.
Statistical Data Center
Intermountain Healthcare
greg.snow at imail.org
801.408.8111

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-
> project.org] On Behalf Of djackson at miners.utep.edu
> Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:55 PM
> To: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: [R] Question about R mode
> 
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> I am using R to perform certain calculations on huge amounts of data.
> In short I need a function that does the mode function, ie returns the
> most common element.  I looked at the mode function in R but it seems
> to return the type of the data element you give it.  Does such a method
> exist?  I have tried googling this to no avail as all the results lead
> me back to the mode function I do not want.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Don
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-
> guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.