[R] what does this mean in R-1.8.1 release notes?

[Simon Fear]

median() has never worked for even-length factors but
the error message was rather unclear (complained about
sum not working for factors). But it did give an "answer"
of sorts for odd-length factors.

Now it doesn't work for either, which is a Good Thing, since
there is no obvious extension of the idea of numeric median
to factors. If you insist you can use

median(as.numeric(myfactor))

but you should think very carefully what this
actually means. Perhaps it has some kind of meaning
for ordered factors, but mostly you'd be better off looking
at a table().


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Christie [mailto:jc at or.psychology.dal.ca]
> Sent: 21 November 2003 13:23
> To: R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: [R] what does this mean in R-1.8.1 release notes?
> 
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> ________________________________________________________________ 
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> what does this mean in R-1.8.1 release notes?
> 
>      o	median() no longer `works' for odd-length 
> factor variables.
> 
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Simon Fear 
Senior Statistician 
Syne qua non Ltd 
Tel: +44 (0) 1379 644449 
Fax: +44 (0) 1379 644445 
email: Simon.Fear at synequanon.com 
web: http://www.synequanon.com 
  
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