/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.6088407]

Hey /sci/,

What's the moving average of a group of numbers?

I'm writing a C program that calculates the moving average (running average) of a given set of numbers:

I input say 5 numbers from a file given a "window width" and then I output 5 numbers.

What is a window width and a moving average?

Thanks

[Anonymous No.6088409]

Moving average is the average of your last n samples, where n is the window. As you get a new data point, the nth oldest drops out of your window, and the new one is added.

[Anonymous No.6088416]

>>6088409

So suppose I have a file consisting of these five numbers:

1 2 4 8 4

and the window width is 2.

this means it outputs:

1.5 3 6 ?

[Anonymous No.6088417]

>>6088407
>I'm writing a C program

Why the hell are you writing in C instead of C++?

[Anonymous No.6088423]

>>6088417

It's fun. I'm writing in C90, too.

[Anonymous No.6088428]

>>6088416
So in that sequence of numbers if I set the window to 3 the output would be:

3.5 7 8
?

[Anonymous No.6088437]

>I'm writing a C program that calculates the moving average

Clearly you're not writing that program, because you're too stupid to understand what a moving average is. If such a simple homework exercise is too hard for you, then drop out.

[Anonymous No.6088438]

>>6088428

I was thinking:

7/3 14/3 16/3

[Anonymous No.6088440]

>>6088437
please explain it

[Anonymous No.6088443]

>>6088440
nevermind i just googled it

[Anonymous No.6088445]

>>6088407
>What is a window width and a moving average?

A moving average is a discrete low pass filter on the data set and the width is how many point it considers

ifstream file ("data.txt");
unsigned width, last_loc;
double avg=0, data;
cout<<"Enter the window width";
cin>>width;
if(!width) cerr<<"you're such a faggot!\n";
double* lastpoints = new double[width];
for(last_loc;last_loc<width;last_loc++) lastpoints[last_loc]=0;
while(file.good()){
file>>data;
avg+=(data-lastpoints[last_loc])/width;
lastpoints[last_loc]=data;
last_loc++;
last_loc%=width;//wrap around
cout<<"Data: "<<data<<"\nNew average: "<<avg<<"\n";
}
delete [] lastpoints;

[Anonymous No.6088449]

>>6088445

I was writing it in C, but this works.