Explanation of terms used in glimpse summaries of data
frames
In R, when using the glimpse() function from the
dplyr package to summarize a data frame, you might
encounter several terms describing different data types. These labels
help to identify and understand the types of data stored within each
column of a data frame.
Numerical Variables
- “dbl”: Represents double-precision floating-point
numeric vectors, used for decimal numbers with high precision.
- “int”: Stands for integers, representing whole
numbers without decimal points.
- “num”: Refers to numeric data, encompassing both
integers and floating-point numbers.
Categorical variables
- “fct”: Stands for factors, representing categorical
data.
- “ord”: Specifically indicates an ordered factor,
representing categorical variables with a predefined order or
hierarchy.
Text
- “chr”: Denotes character or text data, used to
represent strings or textual information.