CODEWITHSUNDEEP
r
ruedi
ruedi

Reputation: 5545

Summaries for many Lists

Instead of writing summary(...) for each list I tried the following code:

test <- c('list1', 'list2')
summary(test)

since I guess that R functions read objects and all objects are vectors I thought this would work but it does not. Anyone knows why this is not working and how I can get the summaries of all the lists in one command?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 37

Answers (1)

Ronak Shah
Ronak Shah

Reputation: 388817

You can use lapply to loop over every element in the list

#Sample data
test <- list(mtcars, iris)
lapply(test, summary)

#[[1]]
#  mpg             cyl             disp             hp             drat      
#Min.   :10.40   Min.   :4.000   Min.   : 71.1   Min.   : 52.0   Min.   :2.760  
#1st Qu.:15.43   1st Qu.:4.000   1st Qu.:120.8   1st Qu.: 96.5   1st Qu.:3.080  
#Median :19.20   Median :6.000   Median :196.3   Median :123.0   Median :3.695  
#Mean   :20.09   Mean   :6.188   Mean   :230.7   Mean   :146.7   Mean   :3.597  
#3rd Qu.:22.80   3rd Qu.:8.000   3rd Qu.:326.0   3rd Qu.:180.0   3rd Qu.:3.920  
#Max.   :33.90   Max.   :8.000   Max.   :472.0   Max.   :335.0   Max.   :4.930  
#    wt             qsec             vs               am              gear      
# Min.   :1.513   Min.   :14.50   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :0.0000   Min.   :3.000  
#1st Qu.:2.581   1st Qu.:16.89   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:0.0000   1st Qu.:3.000  
#Median :3.325   Median :17.71   Median :0.0000   Median :0.0000   Median :4.000  
#Mean   :3.217   Mean   :17.85   Mean   :0.4375   Mean   :0.4062   Mean   :3.688  
#3rd Qu.:3.610   3rd Qu.:18.90   3rd Qu.:1.0000   3rd Qu.:1.0000   3rd Qu.:4.000  
#Max.   :5.424   Max.   :22.90   Max.   :1.0000   Max.   :1.0000   Max.   :5.000  
#    carb      
#Min.   :1.000  
#1st Qu.:2.000  
#Median :2.000  
#Mean   :2.812  
#3rd Qu.:4.000  
#Max.   :8.000  

#[[2]]
#  Sepal.Length    Sepal.Width     Petal.Length    Petal.Width          Species  
# Min.   :4.300   Min.   :2.000   Min.   :1.000   Min.   :0.100   setosa    :50  
# 1st Qu.:5.100   1st Qu.:2.800   1st Qu.:1.600   1st Qu.:0.300   versicolor:50  
# Median :5.800   Median :3.000   Median :4.350   Median :1.300   virginica :50  
# Mean   :5.843   Mean   :3.057   Mean   :3.758   Mean   :1.199                  
# 3rd Qu.:6.400   3rd Qu.:3.300   3rd Qu.:5.100   3rd Qu.:1.800                  
# Max.   :7.900   Max.   :4.400   Max.   :6.900   Max.   :2.500

As per the comment by @docendo discimus,

If the OP has taken lists in the form of character as mentioned in the question. 

test <- c('list1', 'list2')

in that case mget should be used

lapply(mget(test), summary)

Upvotes: 2

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