[R] histogram question

[Ben Bolker]

  Use the option(s) freq=FALSE or prob=TRUE (see the help page).  [This
was temporarily broken in some earlier version of R.] I believe there is a
reasonable argument for making freq=FALSE be the default option (we get a
certain number of questions along these lines), but I also seem to recall
that this was debated in the R mailing lists before and that there are
other opinions ...

  Ben Bolker

On Thu, 15 Nov 2001, Erich Neuwirth wrote:

> thanks for all the help.
>
> one question remains.
> if histogram is meant for continuous data
> (which makes sense)
> why is it changing the defaults of the graphics
> depending on the amount of data,
> and not on the scale of the data.
>
> in both my examples, i had a data vector with numbers ranging from 0 to
> 10,
> once with 1000 elements,
> once with 100000 elements.
>
> this is the same "quality" of data.
> should the graphics defaults not stay consistent with that?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ben Bolker wrote:
> >
> >   The basic problem is that hist() is really designed for continuous data,
> > and you're using it with discrete data.  You can either say
> >
> > r <- rbinom(100000,10,0.5)
> > hist(r,10,0.5),col=2,xlim=c(0,10),ylim=c(0,30000),
> >      breaks=seq(-0.5,10.5,by=0.1))
> >
> > so that the bins span (-0.5 to 0.5, 0.5 to 1.5, ...)
> >
> > or (arguably better, because it is more sensible with discrete data)
> >
> > barplot(table(r),space=0)
> >
> > On Mon, 12 Nov 2001, Erich Neuwirth wrote:
> >
> > > hist(rbinom(1000,10,0.5),col=2,xlim=c(0,10),ylim=c(0,300))
> > > gives a histogram with "touching bars"
> > >
> > > hist(rbinom(100000,10,0.5),col=2,xlim=c(0,10),ylim=c(0,30000))
> > > gives a histogram with space between the bars.
> > >
> > > is there a way to control the space betweent he bars easily?
>
> --
> Erich Neuwirth, Computer Supported Didactics Working Group
> Visit our SunSITE at http://sunsite.univie.ac.at
> Phone: +43-1-4277-38624 Fax: +43-1-4277-9386
>

-- 
318 Carr Hall                                bolker at zoo.ufl.edu
Zoology Department, University of Florida    http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/bolker
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