A stemplot is a form of histogram (see Simple Text Histogram) used to display numerical data.
This function will display a stemplot for the numerical data provided. It is intended for use on an Xterm or equivalent, and so should not have large data sets passed to it.
#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use diagnostics; use POSIX; sub stemplot { my $p = shift; my @sortedData = sort { $a <=> $b } @$p; my $div = 10 ** (floor log10 $sortedData[ int ($#sortedData / 2)]); my $range = $sortedData[-1] - $sortedData[0]; if (($range / $div) < 5.0) { $div /= 10; } elsif (($range / $div) > 35.0) { $div *= 10; } my @dataTo1DecimalPlace = map { sprintf "%.1f", ($_ / $div) } @sorte +dData; my %leaves; foreach (@dataTo1DecimalPlace) { my $stem = floor $_; $leaves{$stem} .= sprintf "%1.0f", 10 * ($_ - $stem); } my $minStem = floor $dataTo1DecimalPlace[0]; my $maxStem = floor $dataTo1DecimalPlace[-1]; print "key: 10 stem = ", 10 * $div, " data\n"; foreach ($minStem .. $maxStem) { printf "%3d: %s\n", $_, defined $leaves{$_} ? $leaves{$_} : ""; } print "\n"; }