I am using the R package stargazer to generate tables in Latex. It works great but I cannot figure out how to format my numbers correctly. I want all numbers to show exactly one decimal place (e. g. 1.0, 0.1, 10.5 etc.). I therefore use the option digits = 1. However, for exact numbers like 1 this gives me 1 instead of 1.0. How can I get a decimal place even for exact numbers (1.0 instead of 1)?
Answer
You can use regex to add the decimal places back after using stargazer. Here is an example. You may need to change the regex string slightly, depending on the type of summary you are generating with stargazer, but since no minimal example is included in the question, the best I can do is give a generic example of this method:
star = stargazer(attitude, digits=1, digits.extra=1)
star = gsub("& ([0-9]+) ", "& \\1\\.0 ", star)
cat(star, sep = "\n")
# % Table created by stargazer v.5.2 by Marek Hlavac, Harvard University. E-mail: hlavac at fas.harvard.edu
# % Date and time: Sat, Oct 08, 2016 - 8:11:26 PM
# \begin{table}[!htbp] \centering
# \caption{}
# \label{}
# \begin{tabular}{@{\extracolsep{5pt}}lccccc}
# \\[-1.8ex]\hline
# \hline \\[-1.8ex]
# Statistic & \multicolumn{1}{c}{N} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{Mean} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{St. Dev.} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{Min} & \multicolumn{1}{c}{Max} \\
# \hline \\[-1.8ex]
# rating & 30.0 & 64.6 & 12.2 & 40.0 & 85.0 \\
# complaints & 30.0 & 66.6 & 13.3 & 37.0 & 90.0 \\
# privileges & 30.0 & 53.1 & 12.2 & 30.0 & 83.0 \\
# learning & 30.0 & 56.4 & 11.7 & 34.0 & 75.0 \\
# raises & 30.0 & 64.6 & 10.4 & 43.0 & 88.0 \\
# critical & 30.0 & 74.8 & 9.9 & 49.0 & 92.0 \\
# advance & 30.0 & 42.9 & 10.3 & 25.0 & 72.0 \\
# \hline \\[-1.8ex]
# \end{tabular}
# \end{table}
In this example, the pattern "& ([0-9]+) " looks for "& " followed by a string of digits, followed by a space. It then replaces this with "& ", the same group of digits it found (using //1), a period (//. because periods must be escaped, as they are special characters in regex), a decimal zero and a space.
Some different summary formats produced by stargazer could possibly have other things you may need to include in the search string, such as numbers followed by a character other than a space (e.g. a comma). Or maybe numbers that aren't preceded by an & might need replacing in some instances.
In any case the general approach is the same.