Comments on: Java package for statistical analysis?

Question: Java package for statistical analysis?

gurple — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 16:22:21 -0800

Know of a good, free Java package for basic statistical analysis?

I'm working on a product that needs to do some basic statistical analysis of data. At the moment the specific task at hand is linear regression, but I wouldn't mind having one place to go for simple standard deviation and stuff like that, too. I could spend a bunch of time writing stuff myself, but I figure, why reinvent the wheel?

The product I work on is free and open source, and that's what I'm looking for in a stats API, too. Or at least free! Also I want something as targeted as possible -- I don't want to pull in gigabytes of code just so I can use a couple classes.

I've been poking around looking for stuff, but surprisingly I've found little so far (this, for instance, is not free). Can anyone help me out?

By: Rothko

Rothko — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 19:46:56 -0800

JRI will let you run R from inside Java calls. Both are open source and free.

By: mulkey

mulkey — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 20:02:34 -0800

It's not Java and it's not open source, but you can download a student version of SPSS that's fully functional for free on their website. I think it expires after 30 days or so, but it does work. And SPSS is relatively user friendly.

By: dhruva

dhruva — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:05:31 -0800

Here's a site with a list of free stats software. Look around this website, it has tons of links, and this one might interest you.

By: sanitycheck

sanitycheck — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:09:35 -0800

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the question, but I think gurple is looking for a stats API he can use *within* his Java program. This rules out actual stats software, even web-based.

I searched around a bit and all I came up with was the same link referenced in the original post. If it were me I would probably just write the stuff I needed from scratch, or shell out the dough for the WebCab stuff.

By: Rothko

Rothko — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 07:10:03 -0800

JRI will let you run R, a popular and free open source stat pack, using Java methods. JRI provides an "API", roughly speaking.

By: gurple

gurple — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 10:56:37 -0800

Hmm, yep, it's not looking good so far. I use R heavily, and in fact my current workaround will be to call out to R, but that's cumbersome and not very efficient. I might end up just writing some linear regression code. It seems unbelievable that someone hasn't done this already and made it public!

Thanks for all the help so far!

By: sanitycheck

sanitycheck — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 10:56:50 -0800

Whoops, didn't mean to include your answer in my generalization, Rothko. But would a programmer be able to package R with their open source product? I'm not up on the rules of redistributing OSS.

By: gurple

gurple — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 11:05:05 -0800

In fact, some of the people involved in developing R suggested the same thing to me -- package up a minimal R installation with our product. So I _think_ there are no legal issues. But still, it's a lot of dependency for a little functionality.