[R] probability histogram question

[Alec Stephenson]

Alec Stephenson                                               
Department of Statistics
Macquarie University
NSW 2109, Australia 

>>> Joseph LeBouton <lebouton at msu.edu> 08/20/04 10:28am >>>
Alec,

Thanks for your reply.  I guess what I'm getting at is that I to plot 
the histogram such that the HEIGHT of each bar represents the
proportion 
of that class in the sample.  From your reply I gather that the AREA of

each bar is currently representing the proportion.

My current work-around is to not plot the histogram immediately; I set

it up (with plot=F), divide h$density by 10, then plot h;

x <- runif(100,0,1)
h <- hist(x, freq=F, plot=F)
h$density <- h$density/10
plot(h, freq=F)

while this is up to my normal hacking modus operandi, it's not terribly

efficient.  Is there another way to do that?  Or is what I'm trying to

do a perceptually and/or statistically incorrect way to think about 
histograms?

Quick responses to each sentence in this paragraph:
1) Seems perfectly fine to me.
2) Not that I know of.
3) A histogram can be thought of as a density estimate. If you change
the scale on the x-axis, you are no longer plotting a histogram.

Yours,
Alec