How to standardized a column in an R data frame?

The standardization means converting a vector or column of an R data frame in a way such that the mean of the same becomes 0 and the standard deviation becomes 1, that is it should be converted to standard normal distribution. In R, it can be easily done with the help of scale function. Check out the below example to understand how it is done.

Example

Consider the below data frame:

Live Demo

> set.seed(3665)
> x1<-rnorm(20,1,0.35)
> x2<-rnorm(20,50,1.25)
> x3<-rnorm(20,125,10.27)
> x4<-rpois(20,5)
> x5<-runif(20,1,5)
> x6<-rexp(20,1.35)
> df<-data.frame(x1,x2,x3,x4,x5,x6)
> df

Output

x1 x2 x3 x4 x5 x6
1 1.3958185 49.39843 128.5224 3 4.183664 2.33406246
2 1.0467979 48.90103 120.5796 7 3.526731 0.02043217
3 0.9190516 50.74664 110.4765 6 2.145181 0.04268455
4 1.1196425 47.83063 126.3711 9 4.276084 0.87234197
5 1.0033896 51.31879 144.2594 5 3.308073 0.28540083
6 0.7571435 49.92559 109.9660 5 2.349070 0.09613835
7 0.8266129 48.93754 135.5895 3 2.479160 0.15018153
8 1.2786206 50.27384 122.8543 4 4.343062 1.26431542
9 0.8661156 50.36976 122.9482 7 3.517678 0.24045191
10 0.9237285 48.55069 121.6440 4 1.619902 0.72327013
11 0.8191029 49.27937 111.8696 3 4.760655 0.97199973
12 1.2619135 50.91131 129.0021 4 3.355301 1.42184615
13 1.5297983 49.38604 133.4756 1 2.977833 0.50042231
14 0.7858227 47.92899 142.0669 3 3.262058 0.37260602
15 0.5626517 51.22160 107.5586 2 3.194546 0.21176125
16 1.2106700 51.65911 132.4945 3 1.088987 0.78318970
17 1.5351378 48.60769 116.1427 7 3.423079 0.65904040
18 0.4134951 52.09415 125.1567 5 4.309763 0.03658430
19 1.0490230 49.87242 125.6695 6 2.255468 1.32173240
20 0.9521718 50.96409 131.8025 1 4.312514 0.26955446

Standardizing columns of data frame df:

Example

> scale(df$x1)

Output

       [,1]
[1,] 1.29357316
[2,] 0.11471258
[3,] -0.31676647
[4,] 0.36075419
[5,] -0.03190435
[6,] -0.86363126
[7,] -0.62898965
[8,] 0.89772243
[9,] -0.49556454
[10,] -0.30096951
[11,] -0.65435564
[12,] 0.84129223
[13,] 1.74610668
[14,] -0.76676371
[15,] -1.52055135
[16,] 0.66821113
[17,] 1.76414130
[18,] -2.02434637
[19,] 0.12222816
[20,] -0.20489902
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 1.012835
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 0.2960661

Example

> scale(df$x2)

Output

        [,1]
[1,] -0.41047444
[2,] -0.81044801
[3,] 0.67365908
[4,] -1.67118308
[5,] 1.13374554
[6,] 0.01343048
[7,] -0.78108246
[8,] 0.29346832
[9,] 0.37059777
[10,] -1.09216479
[11,] -0.50620790
[12,] 0.80607839
[13,] -0.42043493
[14,] -1.59208513
[15,] 1.05558665
[16,] 1.40740638
[17,] -1.04632509
[18,] 1.75723305
[19,] -0.02932018
[20,] 0.84852032
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 49.90889
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 1.243585

Example

> scale(df$x3)

Output

        [,1]
[1,] 0.34992259
[2,] -0.42214208
[3,] -1.40419396
[4,] 0.14081369
[5,] 1.87961161
[6,] -1.45381494
[7,] 1.03687396
[8,] -0.20103605
[9,] -0.19190685
[10,] -0.31867565
[11,] -1.26878469
[12,] 0.39654942
[13,] 0.83139424
[14,] 1.66649197
[15,] -1.68782930
[16,] 0.73602324
[17,] -0.85342655
[18,] 0.02276361
[19,] 0.07260960
[20,] 0.66875614
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 124.9225
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 10.28772

Example

> scale(df$x4)

Output

        [,1]
[1,] -0.6550055
[2,] 1.2164389
[3,] 0.7485778
[4,] 2.1521611
[5,] 0.2807167
[6,] 0.2807167
[7,] -0.6550055
[8,] -0.1871444
[9,] 1.2164389
[10,] -0.1871444
[11,] -0.6550055
[12,] -0.1871444
[13,] -1.5907277
[14,] -0.6550055
[15,] -1.1228666
[16,] -0.6550055
[17,] 1.2164389
[18,] 0.2807167
[19,] 0.7485778
[20,] -1.5907277
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 4.4
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 2.137387

Example

> scale(df$x5)

Output

         [,1]
[1,] 0.95270619
[2,] 0.29336256
[3,] -1.09325500
[4,] 1.04546450
[5,] 0.07390313
[6,] -0.88861840
[7,] -0.75805159
[8,] 1.11268817
[9,] 0.28427648
[10,] -1.62046133
[11,] 1.53181336
[12,] 0.12130380
[13,] -0.25754850
[14,] 0.02771942
[15,] -0.04004115
[16,] -2.15332455
[17,] 0.18933035
[18,] 1.07926704
[19,] -0.98256346
[20,] 1.08202896
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 3.23444
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 0.9963449

Example

> scale(df$x6)

Output

        [,1]
[1,] 2.8372424
[2,] -1.0124395
[3,] -0.9754135
[4,] 0.4050652
[5,] -0.5715544
[6,] -0.8864709
[7,] -0.7965477
[8,] 1.0572753
[9,] -0.6463456
[10,] 0.1570224
[11,] 0.5708871
[12,] 1.3193929
[13,] -0.2137772
[14,] -0.4264525
[15,] -0.6940844
[16,] 0.2567235
[17,] 0.0501497
[18,] -0.9855638
[19,] 1.1528122
[20,] -0.5979214
attr(,"scaled:center")
[1] 0.6289008
attr(,"scaled:scale")
[1] 0.6009926