[R] aggregate example : where is the state.region variable?

[Gabor Grothendieck]

It is worthwhile to note that what is being illustrated here is aggregating a
numeric matrix by a factor using the aggregate.default method and, of course,
a factor can't be part of a numeric matrix.

Of course, that is not say that the examples could not be improved in
terms of clarity, simplicity and comprehensiveness (there is no
example of aggregate.data.frame).


On 8/21/06, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> --- Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Its not part of state.x77.  Its a completely
> > separate variable.
> > Try ls("package:datasets") and notice its in the
> > list
> > or try ?state.region and note that its a variable in
> > datasets.
>
> Thanks. I was wondering if it was going something like
> that.
>
> However, it is a bloody stupid example, at least to a
> newbie.  A call to another data.set in what is
> supposed to be a simple example is very confusing.
>
> When someone is apparently illustrating a function
> with a simple one line command I don't expect them to
> call another data set, apparently create a new
> variable (Region), and use that new variable as the
> grouping variable without a word of explanation of
> what the example is doing.
>
> If I sound a bit annoyed it is because I am. It might
> be nice to have an example illlustate the funtion,not
> do a couple of other undocumented things as well.
> >
> >
> > On 8/21/06, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > > I was looking ?aggregate and ran the first example
> > >
> > >  aggregate(state.x77, list(Region = state.region),
> > > mean)
> > >
> > > The variables in state.x77 appear to be :
> > > > state.x77
> > > Population Income Illiteracy Life Exp Murder HS
> > Grad
> > > Frost   Area
> > >
> > > Where is the "state.region" variable coming from?
> > >
> > > ______________________________________________
> > > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> > > PLEASE do read the posting guide
> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained,
> > reproducible code.
> > >
> >
>
>
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