[R] How to generate fake population (ie. not sample) data?

[Daniel Nordlund]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org 
> [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of CB
> Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 10:05 PM
> To: David Winsemius
> Cc: r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] How to generate fake population (ie. not 
> sample) data?
> 
> My understanding is that rnorm(n, x, s) will give me an n-sized sample
> from an (x, s) normal distribution. So the vector returned will have a
> mean from the sampling distribution of the mean. But what I want is a
> set of n numbers literally with a mean of x and sd of s.
> 
> I am at the very beginning of my R journey, so my apologies if this is
> a particularly naive enquiry.
> 
> 2009/3/4 David Winsemius <dwinsemius at comcast.net>:
> > In what ways is rnorm not a satisfactory answer?
> >
> > --
> > David Winsemius
> >
> > On Mar 3, 2009, at 9:33 PM, CB wrote:
> >
> >> This seems like it should be obvious, but searches I've 
> tried all come
> >> up with rnorm etc.
> >>
> >> Is there a way of generating normally-distributed 'population' data
> >> with known parameters?
> >>
> >> Cheers, CB.
> >>

Something like this may help get you started.

std.pop <- function(x,mu,stdev){
  ((x-mean(x))/sd(x)*stdev)+mu
  }

population <- std.pop(rnorm(1000),10,5)

Hope this is helpful,

Dan

Daniel Nordlund
Bothell, WA USA