| sample {base} | R Documentation |
sample takes a sample of the specified size from the elements
of x using either with or without replacement.
sample(x, size, replace = FALSE, prob = NULL) sample.int(n, size = n, replace = FALSE, prob = NULL)
x |
Either a vector of one or more elements from which to choose, or a positive integer. See ‘Details.’ |
n |
a positive number, the number of items to choose from. See ‘Details.’ |
size |
a non-negative integer giving the number of items to choose. |
replace |
Should sampling be with replacement? |
prob |
A vector of probability weights for obtaining the elements of the vector being sampled. |
If x has length 1, is numeric (in the sense of
is.numeric) and x >= 1, sampling via
sample takes place from 1:x. Note that this
convenience feature may lead to undesired behaviour when x is
of varying length in calls such as sample(x). See the examples.
Otherwise x can be any R object for which length and
subsetting by integers make sense: S3 or S4 methods for these
operations will be dispatched as appropriate.
For sample the default for size is the number of items
inferred from the first argument, so that sample(x) generates a
random permutation of the elements of x (or 1:x).
As from R 2.11.0 it is allowed to ask for size = 0 samples
with n = 0 or a length-zero x, but otherwise n >
0 or positive length(x) is required.
Non-integer positive numerical values of n or x will be
truncated to the next smallest integer, which has to be no larger than
.Machine$integer.max.
The optional prob argument can be used to give a vector of
weights for obtaining the elements of the vector being sampled. They
need not sum to one, but they should be non-negative and not all zero.
If replace is true, Walker's alias method (Ripley, 1987) is
used when there are more than 250 reasonably probable values: this
gives results incompatible with those from R < 2.2.0, and there will
be a warning the first time this happens in a session.
If replace is false, these probabilities are applied
sequentially, that is the probability of choosing the next item is
proportional to the weights amongst the remaining items. The number
of nonzero weights must be at least size in this case.
sample.int is a bare interface in which both n and
size must be supplied as integers.
For sample a vector of length size with elements
drawn from either x or from the integers 1:x.
For sample.int, an integer vector of length size with
elements from 1:n,
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
Ripley, B. D. (1987) Stochastic Simulation. Wiley.
RNG about random number generation.
CRAN package sampling for other methods of weighted sampling without replacement.
x <- 1:12
# a random permutation
sample(x)
# bootstrap resampling -- only if length(x) > 1 !
sample(x, replace=TRUE)
# 100 Bernoulli trials
sample(c(0,1), 100, replace = TRUE)
## More careful bootstrapping -- Consider this when using sample()
## programmatically (i.e., in your function or simulation)!
# sample()'s surprise -- example
x <- 1:10
sample(x[x > 8]) # length 2
sample(x[x > 9]) # oops -- length 10!
sample(x[x > 10]) # length 0
## For R >= 2.11.0 only
resample <- function(x, ...) x[sample.int(length(x), ...)]
resample(x[x > 8]) # length 2
resample(x[x > 9]) # length 1
resample(x[x > 10]) # length 0