From sds at gnu.org  Tue Sep 10 18:56:36 2013
From: sds at gnu.org (Sam Steingold)
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 12:56:36 -0400
Subject: [Rd] [PATCH] show vector length in summary()
References: <8738pcu4qa.fsf@gnu.org> <21039.14589.7764.131241@max.nulle.part>
Message-ID: <87y574sji3.fsf@gnu.org>

> * Dirk Eddelbuettel <rqq at qrovna.bet> [2013-09-10 10:21:33 -0500]:
>
> On 10 September 2013 at 10:32, Sam Steingold wrote:
> | (summary.default): show the vector length in addition to quantiles
> | 
> | 
> | diff -u -i -p -F '^(def' -b -w -B /home/sds/src/R-3.0.1/src/library/base/R/summary.R.old /home/sds/src/R-3.0.1/src/library/base/R/summary.R
> | --- /home/sds/src/R-3.0.1/src/library/base/R/summary.R.old	2013-03-05 18:02:33.000000000 -0500
> | +++ /home/sds/src/R-3.0.1/src/library/base/R/summary.R	2013-09-10 10:19:02.682946339 -0400
> | @@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ summary.default <-
> |  	qq <- stats::quantile(object)
> |  	qq <- signif(c(qq[1L:3L], mean(object), qq[4L:5L]), digits)
> |  	names(qq) <- c("Min.", "1st Qu.", "Median", "Mean", "3rd Qu.", "Max.")
> | +  qq <- c(qq,"Length" = length(object))
> |  	if(any(nas))
> |  	    c(qq, "NA's" = sum(nas))
> |  	else qq
> | 
> | Diff finished.  Tue Sep 10 10:19:40 2013
>
> Base R functions are rarely modified; others may have expectations on
> summary() returning the six values it returns.

Note that summary sometimes returns 5 values (when there no "NA's").
It is clearly wrong to rely on the details of the return value of a UI function.

> Many alternatives are available, including describe in Hmisc which
> returns the count you suggest, and a count of missingness.

Such a minor issue hardly justifies installing a whole new package.
(but thanks for the suggestion!)

-- 
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[Rd] [PATCH] show vector length in summary()
Sam Steingold