Numeric Arrays

Provides a library of utility mixins for dealing with numeric arrays in
JavaScript. For example:

var NumericArray = require('numeric_array'),
myArray = [1, 2, 3, 4];

NumericArray.extend(myArray);
myArray.sum(); // 10
myArray.mean(); // 2.5
myArray.add([1, 1, 1, 1]); // myArray is now [2, 3, 4, 5]
myArray.dot([1, 0, 1, 0]); // 6
myArray.multiply([0, 1, 0, 1]); // myArray is now [0, 3, 0, 5]

Note that the above is a slightly verbose way of using the library. Most
methods can be chained, so you could write:

var $A = require('numeric_array').extend,
myArray = $A([1, 2, 3, 4]);

myArray
.add([1, 1, 1, 1])
.multiply([0, 1, 0, 1]); // myArray is now [0, 3, 0, 5]

$A([1, 1, 1, 1, 1.1]).sum(); // 5.1
$A([1, 1, 2, 2, 1.5]).mean(); // 1.5
$A([1, 2, 3, 4, 3.3]).max(); // 4

Things to note

Beware, these methods modify the original array. As shown in the examples
above, using methods that return an array (like add() or multiply()) will
modify the variable in-place and return itself. This means that to do things
like find the difference between two arrays without modifying one of them, you
will need to take a clone first. For example, it is very easy to do something
like the following:

// Do not do this. This is the wrong way to find the difference
var a, b, diff;
a = $A([1, 2, 3, 4]);
b = [1, 1, 1, 1];
diff = a.subtract(b); // diff is now [0, 1, 2, 3], which is correct
// but a now also equals [0, 1, 2, 3]

Instead, use the slice() command to create a copy of the array and use that.

// This is the correct way to find the difference
var a, b, diff;
a = [1, 2, 3, 4];
b = [1, 1, 1, 1];
diff = $A(a.slice(0)).subtract(b); // diff is [0, 1, 2, 3]
// a and b are intact

This library assumes that your arrays are already numeric. The extend()
function does not check to see if every element in the array can be parsed to
a numeric value. It is up to you to not pass silly things for extension. If you
do happen to throw a string or object in there, most of the time you will just
get back a NaN value, but sometimes you will cause exceptions to be thrown.

Methods

$3

Adds each element in the array together and returns the total.

$A([1, 2, 3]).sum(); // 6

$3

Calculates the
arithmetic mean of the numbers
in the array.

$A([1, 2, 3, 4]).mean(); // 3.5

$3

Calculates the sample standard deviation
(see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation) of the numbers in the array.

$A([1, 2, 3]).stddev(); // 1.0

$3

Calculates the population standard deviation
(see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation) of the numbers in the array.

$A([1, 2, 3]).stddevpop(); // 0.8165

$3

Returns the largest number in the array (delegates to Math.max()).

$A([-1, 0, 1]).max(); // 1

$3

Returns the smallest number in the array (delegates to Math.min())

$A([-1, 0, 1]).min(); // -1

$3

Appends the value of val to the array until it has length len. Returns
the extended array, allowing for chaining.

$A([1, 2, 3]).pad(5, 0); // [1, 2, 3, 0, 0]

$3

Adds the values of arr to the array. If one of the two arrays is longer than
the other, the shorter one will be padded with zeros to make them the same
length.

$A([1, 1, 1]).add([1, 1, 1, 1, 1]); // [2, 2, 2, 1, 1]

$3

Subtracts arr from the array. If one of the two arrays is longer than
the other, the shorter one will be padded with zeros to make them the same
length.

$A([1, 2, 3, 4]).subtract([1, 1, 1, 1]); // [0, 1, 2, 3]

$3

Multiplies each element of the array with the corresponding element from arr.
If one of the two arrays is longer than
the other, the shorter one will be padded with zeros to make them the same
length.

$A([1, 2, 3, 4]).multiply([2, 2, 2, 2]); // [2, 4, 6, 8]

$3

Calculates the dot product of the array with arr. If one of the two arrays is
longer than the other, the shorter one will be padded with zeros to make them
the same length.

$A([1, 2, 3, 4]).dot([1, 0, 1, 0]); // 4

$3

Returns a copy of the array stripped of its extended functionality.