From: Steven Lumos <steven@...>
Date: 2006-12-03T18:57:31+09:00
Subject: Re: [OT] calculations on lists of numbers

ara.t.howard@noaa.gov writes:
> for years i've felt that i should be able to pipe numerical output into some
> unix command like so
>
>   cat list | mean
>   cat list | sum
>   cat list | minmax
>
> etc.
>
> and have never found one.  right now i'm building a ruby version - before i
> continue, does anyone know a standard unix or ruby version of this?
>
> cheers.
>
> -a
> -- 
> if you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
> if you want to be happy, practice compassion.  -- the dalai lama

Sorry this doesn't really answer your question, but...

When doing science with piles of columns of numbers in text files, I
have got endless mileage out of JDB[1].

It's not only the collection of commands, it's how they painlessly
cause a group to standardize on a single format for all program
output.

% cat db
#h x y
1 4
2 5
3 6
% cat db | dbstats -q 4 x | dblistize
#L mean stddev pct_rsd conf_range conf_low conf_high conf_pct sum sum_squared min max n q1 q2 q3
mean:        2
stddev:      1
pct_rsd:     50
conf_range:  2.4843
conf_low:    -0.48434
conf_high:   4.4843
conf_pct:    0.95
sum:         6
sum_squared: 14
min:         1
max:         3
n:           3
q1:          1
q2:          2
q3:          3

#  | dbstats -q 4 x
#               0.95 confidence intervals assume normal distribution and small n.
#  | dblistize 

Steve

[1] http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/SOFTWARE/JDB/