Significant Figures in R and Rounding

This is a follow-on to my previous post about determining significant digits or sigdigs, in performance and capacity management calculations. See Significant Figures in R and Info Zeros

Once we know how to identify significant digits, inevitably we will be faced with rounding the result of a calculation to the least number of sigdigs. Whereas the signif() function in R suffered from truncating trailing info-zeros in measured values, when it comes to rounding, signif shines. Better yet, it agrees with the Algorithm 3.2 in my GCaP book. Let's see how well it does.

Significant Figures in R and Info Zeros

The other day, I stumbled upon the signif function in R, so I thought I'd take a look at what it does and compare it with some results discussed in Chap. 3 "Damaging Digits in Capacity Calculations" of my GCaP book, viz., Example 3.5 on page 31. The measured numbers in that example are reproduced here in Table 1 using read.table in R.

Plan for Guerrilla Capacity Planning in May

The next set of Guerrilla classes are coming up in May and seats are still available. Book early, book often. Update: Erm ... let me qualify that. The "Boot Camp" class is now closed, but the "Capacity Planning" class running the week of May 10 is still open.


Blast from the past. Some members of the 2006 class. Courtesy Tony Aponte
For those of you coming from international locations, here is a table of currency exchange rates.

(Click on the image for more details)
All Guerrilla classes have a certification level 1, 2, 3, but there are no prerequisites at this time.