Question
Format numbers to significant figures nicely in R
I want to format numbers in my reports to significant digits, but keep trailing significant zeroes and correctly format large numbers
For instance the numbers c(10.00001,12345,1234.5,123.45,1.2345,0.12345) to 3 significant digits should be 10.0, 12300, 1230, 123, 1.23, 0.123 but I get differing results with different methods (and none seem to work universaly.
> numbers<-c(10.00001,12345,1234.5,123.45,1.2345,0.12345)
> for(n in seq(numbers)){
+ print(signif(numbers[n],digits=3))
+ print(format(numbers[n],digits=3))
+ print(formatC(numbers[n], digits=3,format="fg"))
+ print(formatC(numbers[n], digits=3,format="fg", flag="#"))
+ }
[1] 10
[1] "10"
[1] " 10"
[1] "10.0"
[1] 12300
[1] "12345"
[1] "12345"
[1] "12345."
[1] 1230
[1] "1234"
[1] "1234"
[1] "1234."
[1] 123
[1] "123"
[1] " 123"
[1] "123."
[1] 12.3
[1] "12.3"
[1] "12.3"
[1] "12.3"
[1] 1.23
[1] "1.23"
[1] "1.23"
[1] "1.23"
[1] 0.123
[1] "0.123"
[1] "0.123"
[1] "0.123"
Here, signif and format round the 10.00001 result. formatC with flag="#" correctly does the small numbers but not the large numbers.
Is there a better way ?