The R Project SVN R

\name{boxplot.stats}
\title{Box Plot Statistics}
\usage{
boxplot.stats(x, coef = 1.5, do.conf=TRUE, do.out=TRUE)
}
\alias{boxplot.stats}
\arguments{
  \item{x}{a numeric vector for which the boxplot will
    be constructed (\code{\link{NA}}s and \code{\link{NaN}}s are allowed
    and omitted).}
  \item{coef}{this determines how far the plot \dQuote{whiskers} extend out
    from the box.  If \code{coef} is positive, the whiskers extend to the
    most extreme data point which is no more than \code{coef} times
    the length of the box away from the box. A value of zero causes
    the whiskers
    to extend to the data extremes (and no outliers be returned).}
  \item{do.conf,do.out}{logicals; if \code{FALSE}, the \code{conf} or
    \code{out} component respectively will be empty in the result.}
}
\description{
  This function is typically called by \code{\link{boxplot}} to
  gather the statistics necessary for producing box plots,
  but may be invoked separately.
}
\value{
  List with named components as follows:
  \item{stats}{a vector of length 5, containing the extreme of the
    lower whisker, the lower \dQuote{hinge}, the median, the upper \dQuote{hinge}
    and the extreme of the upper whisker.}
  \item{n}{the number of of non-\code{NA} observations in the sample.}
  \item{conf}{the lower and upper extremes of the \dQuote{notch} (\code{if(do.conf)}).}
  \item{out}{the values of any data points which lie beyond the
    extremes of the whiskers (\code{if(do.out)}).}

  Note that \code{$stats} and \code{$conf} are sorted in \emph{in}creasing
  order, unlike S, and that \code{$n} and \code{$out} include any
  \code{+- Inf} values.
}
\details{
  The two \dQuote{hinges} are versions of the first and third quartile,
  i.e., close to \code{\link{quantile}(x, c(1,3)/4)}.  The hinges equal
  the quartiles for odd \eqn{n} (where \code{n <- length(x)}) and
  differ for even \eqn{n}. Where the quartiles only equal observations
  for \code{n \%\% 4 == 1} (\eqn{n\equiv 1 \bmod 4}{n = 1 mod 4}),
  the hinges do so \emph{additionally} for \code{n \%\% 4 == 2}
  (\eqn{n\equiv 2 \bmod 4}{n = 2 mod 4}), and are in the middle of
  two observations otherwise.
}
\references{
  Tukey, J. W. (1977) \emph{Exploratory Data Analysis.} Section 2C.

  McGill, R., Tukey, J. W. and Larsen, W. A. (1978) Variations of box
  plots. \emph{The American Statistician} \bold{32}, 12--16.
  
  Velleman, P. F. and Hoaglin, D. C. (1981) \emph{Applications, Basics
    and Computing of Exploratory Data Analysis.}  Duxbury Press.
  
  Emerson, J. D and Strenio, J. (1983). Boxplots and batch comparison.
  Chapter 3 of \emph{Understanding Robust and Exploratory Data
    Analysis}, eds. D. C. Hoaglin, F. Mosteller and J. W. Tukey.  Wiley.

}
\seealso{
  \code{\link{fivenum}}, \code{\link{boxplot}}, \code{\link{bxp}}.
}
\examples{
x <- c(1:100, 1000)
str(b1 <- boxplot.stats(x))
str(b2 <- boxplot.stats(x, do.conf=FALSE, do.out=FALSE))
stopifnot(b1 $ stats == b2 $ stats) # do.out=F is still robust
str(boxplot.stats(x, coef = 3, do.conf=FALSE))
## no outlier treatment:
str(boxplot.stats(x, coef = 0))

str(boxplot.stats(c(x, NA))) # slight change : n + 1
str(r <- boxplot.stats(c(x, -1:1/0)))
stopifnot(r$out == c(1000, -Inf, Inf))

%% extended example (for the NG of Rdoc):
\dontshow{
 ## Difference between quartiles and hinges :
 nn <- 1:17 ;  n4 <- nn \%\% 4
 hin <- sapply(sapply(nn, seq), function(x) boxplot.stats(x)$stats[c(2,4)])
 q13 <- sapply(sapply(nn, seq), quantile, probs = c(1,3)/4, names = FALSE)
 m <- t(rbind(q13,hin))[, c(1,3,2,4)]
 dimnames(m) <- list(paste(nn), c("q1","lH", "q3","uH"))
 stopifnot(m[n4==1, 1:2] == (nn[n4==1] + 3)/4,# quart. = hinge
           m[n4==1, 3:4] == (3*nn[n4==1]+1)/4,
           m[,"lH"] == ( (nn+3) \%/\% 2) / 2,
           m[,"uH"] == ((3*nn+2)\%/\% 2) / 2)
 cm <- noquote(format(m))
 cm[m[,2] == m[,1], 2] <- " = "
 cm[m[,4] == m[,3], 4] <- " = "
 cm
}

}
\keyword{dplot}