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Number from Column

The Number from Column global variable allows you to extract values or summary statistics from a column of data.

When you create a Number from Column variable, you have to specify the column of data you want to use and the type of value you want to display.

How to Create

Manual Method

Click the Other menu in the variables section at the bottom of the data side panel. Select Number from Column from the list.

This will create the variable with a red dot in the corner.

Select a column, what you want to output, and name the variable. The value that the variable returns is shown to the right of the name.

Quick Create

For a shortcut, click the gear menu on a column object and select from the menu what you want to calculate (sum, max, min, … ).

Or you can also control-clicking (right-click) on a column header in the data table.

Either approach will automatically create the variable, populate the menus, and enter a name.

Display in a Graph

To display in a graph, click the “+” symbol to the right of any text entry box and select from the drop-down menu. This will add a token.

Output

Use the What menu to specify the value you want to derive or return.

NameDescription
sumsum of all values in a column
sum of ^2sum of the squares of the values
maxmaximum of a column
minminimum of the column
maxmaximum of a column
rangemaximum minus the minimum
countNumber of non-empty rows
# of rowsTotal number of rows (including empty)
meanMean of the column
medianMedian of the column
σPopulation Standard deviation
sSample Standard deviation (unbiased estimate of σ)
semStandard error of the mean
At index …Return a value from a specific row

At Index …

You can also extract a single numeric value from a row by specifying the index for the row. This feature can be useful for animations or scrubbing through a data set with a slider.

To use, set the index to a slider variable and restrict that to an integer.

Then the slider could be used to scrub through the rows.

Notice how the value changes when we move the slider.

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