STANDARD-DEVIATION

The STANDARD-DEVIATION function returns a numeric value that approximates the standard deviation of its arguments.

The function type is numeric.

Format

Read syntax diagramSkip visual syntax diagramFUNCTION STANDARD-DEVIATION ( argument-1 )
argument-1
Must be class numeric.

The returned value is the approximation of the standard deviation of the argument-1 series. The returned value is calculated as follows:

  1. The difference between each argument-1 and the arithmetic mean of the argument-1 series is calculated and squared.
  2. The values obtained are then added together. This quantity is divided by the number of values in the argument-1 series.
  3. The square root of the quotient obtained is then calculated. The returned value is the absolute value of this square root.

If the argument-1 series consists of only one value, or if the argument-1 series consists of all variable-occurrence data items and the total number of occurrences for all of them is one, the returned value is zero.