R Observatory: Metrics for entropy version 1.3.2

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

entropy

1.3.2Package record

Estimation of Entropy, Mutual Information and Related Quantities

33packages dependsuggested by 9

123.9Kdownloads / year

–test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Korbinian StrimmerCRAN page ↗Website ↗

Implements various estimators of entropy for discrete random variables, including the shrinkage estimator by Hausser and Strimmer (2009), the maximum likelihood and the Millow-Madow estimator, various Bayesian estimators, and the Chao-Shen estimator. It also offers an R interface to the NSB estimator. Furthermore, the package provides functions for estimating the Kullback-Leibler divergence, the chi-squared divergence, mutual information, and the chi-squared divergence of independence. It also computes the G statistic and the chi-squared statistic and corresponding p-values. Furthermore, there are functions for discretizing continuous random variables.

Install

R (CRAN)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("entropy", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-entropy

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-entropy

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-entropy

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 46 s · r-devel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 1.3.2

READMENoVignettesNoNEWSYes · 33% structuredCitation fileNoWebsiteYes

Help pages: 14 (1 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 100%12 run in a plain check
Exported functions with examples: 100%
Documented parameters: 98%
Return-value docs: 100%
Help pages citing references: 43%

How these are measured

Downloads

123.9K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #1,174 · ~340/day · ~10.3K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

8.1K30 days

29.1K90 days

123.9K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on1.4K r2u10 autocran3.7K conda_forge129 c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

strimmerlab/software ↗

Responsiveness

not measured

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

Repository github.com/strimmerlab/software is linked, but repository-practices checks have not run for it yet.

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

0 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing entropy adds no packages beyond those that come with R.

Depends (1)

R >= 3.4.0

Imports (0)

none

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (0)

none

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

33direct

10indirect

Depends 2 · Imports 31

Suggested by 9

Show all 42 packagesHide all 42 packages

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

Suggests, most downloaded first

WGCNA proxyC quanteda.textstats FSelectorRcpp abn conos embryogrowth netOP sgsR

How these are counted

Code & Tests

People & History

People (2)

Korbinian Strimmer

Author, Maintainer since 1.0.0 (2008)

Jean Hausser

Author · added in 1.1.3

Listed in earlier versions (1)

Jean Hauser

no longer listed · 1.0.0 to 1.1.2

Releases (16)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
1.3.2Latest
record
2025-04-08 · current release · diff ↗
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
1.3.1
record
2021-10-02 · diff ↗
R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
1.3.0
record
2021-04-25 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
Gstat, Gstatindep, chi2stat, chi2statindep
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24
R
R 3.6.0 released · 2019-04-26
R
R 3.5.0 released · 2018-04-23
R
R 3.4.0 released · 2017-04-21
R
R 3.3.0 released · 2016-05-03
R
R 3.2.0 released · 2015-04-16
1.2.1
record
2014-11-14 · diff ↗

Show 23 earlier eventsHide 23 earlier events

R
R 3.1.0 released · 2014-04-10
1.2.0
record
2013-07-16 · diff ↗ ·
added 13 exports
chi2.Dirichlet, chi2.empirical, chi2.plugin, chi2.shrink, chi2indep.Dirichlet, chi2indep.empirical, chi2indep.plugin, chi2indep.shrink, discretize2d, KL.Dirichlet, KL.empirical, KL.plugin, KL.shrink
1.1.9
record
2013-06-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
discretize
R
R 3.0.0 released · 2013-04-03
1.1.8
record
2013-03-25 · diff ↗
R
R 2.15.0 released · 2012-03-30
1.1.7
record
2012-01-20 · diff ↗ ·
added 16 exports
entropy, entropy.ChaoShen, entropy.Dirichlet, entropy.empirical, entropy.MillerMadow, entropy.NSB, entropy.plugin, entropy.shrink, freqs, freqs.Dirichlet, freqs.empirical, freqs.shrink, mi.Dirichlet, mi.empirical, mi.plugin, mi.shrink
R
R 2.14.0 released · 2011-10-31
R
R 2.13.0 released · 2011-04-13
1.1.6
record
2011-03-21 · diff ↗
R
R 2.12.0 released · 2010-10-15
R
R 2.11.0 released · 2010-04-22
1.1.5
record
2010-04-11 · diff ↗
R
R 2.10.0 released · 2009-10-26
1.1.4
record
2009-08-08 · diff ↗
R
R 2.9.0 released · 2009-04-17
1.1.3
record
2009-01-09 · diff ↗
1.1.2
record
2008-11-22 · diff ↗
1.1.1
record
2008-10-26 · diff ↗
R
R 2.8.0 released · 2008-10-20
1.1.0
record
2008-09-29 · diff ↗
1.0.0
record
2008-09-03
R
R 2.7.0 released · 2008-04-22

Package metadata

First published: 2008-09-03
Total releases: 16 / 18 yrs
License: GPL (>= 3) OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 3.4.0
Download size: 15 KB

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("entropy")

Format

Strimmer, K., & Hausser, J. (2025). entropy: Estimation of Entropy, Mutual Information and Related Quantities (Version 1.3.2) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.entropy

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for entropy version 1.3.2 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-18. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-18, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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