statistics from the command line interface (CLI)
Imagine you have this sample file:
$ cat numbers.txt
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
How do you calculate the sum of the numbers?
If you ask around, you'll come up with suggestions like these:
$ awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}' numbers.txt
55
$ perl -lne '$x += $_; END { print $x; }' numbers.txt
55
$ sum=0; while read num ; do sum=$(($sum + $num)); done < numbers.txt ; echo $sum
55
$ paste -sd+ numbers.txt | bc
55
Now imagine that you need to calculate the arithmetic mean, median, or standard deviation...
"st" is a command-line tool to calculate simple statistics from a file or standard input.
Let's start with "sum":
$ st --sum numbers.txt
55
That was easy!
How about mean and standard deviation?
$ st --mean --sd numbers.txt
mean sd
5.50 3.03
If you don't specify any options, you'll get this output:
$ st numbers.txt
count min max sum mean sd
10.00 1.00 10.00 55.00 5.50 3.03
And the "--summary" option will provide the five-number summary:
$ st --summary numbers.txt
min q1 median q3 max
1.00 3.50 5.50 7.50 10.00
You can also modify the output format:
$ st --transverse-output numbers.txt
N 10.00
min 1.00
max 10.00
sum 55.00
mean 5.50
sd 3.03
"R" and Octave are integrated suites for data manipulation, calculation and graphical display.
They provide a wide variety of numeric and analytic methods (linear and nonlinear modelling, statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, etc).
"st" is a simpler solution for simpler problems, focused on descriptive statistics, handy when you need quick results without leaving the shell.
st <file>
st [options] <file>
If no options are used, "st" will print:
n min max sum mean sd
For fine-grained control, the following options are available:
--N|n|count
--max
--mean|avg|m
--median
--min
--mode
--sd|stdev
--sum|s
--var|variance
--percentile=<0..100>
--quartile=<1..3>
--summary # five-number summary: min q1 median q3 max
--complete # complete results
--delimiter|d=<value> # default: "\t"
--format|fmt|f=<value> # default: "%.2f"
--no-header|nh # don't display header
--transverse-output # output in multiple lines
--quiet|q # silently skip invalid input
Send comments, suggestions and bug reports to:
https://github.com/nferraz/st/issues
Or fork the code on github: