I have a dataset in the form of a table:
Score Percentile
381 1
382 2
383 2
...
569 98
570 99
The complete table is here as a Google spreadsheet.
Currently, I am computing a score and then doing a lookup on this dataset (table) to find the corresponding percentile rank.
Is it possible to create a function to calculate the corresponding percentile rank for a given score using a formula instead of looking it up in the table?
It's impossible to recreate the function that generated a given table of data, if no information is provided about the process behind that data.
That being said, we can make some speculation.
Since it's a "percentile" function, it probably represents the cumulative value of a probability distribution of some sort. A very common probability distribution is the normal distribution, whose "cumulative" counterpart (i.e. its integral) is the so called "error function" ("erf").
In fact, your tabulated data looks a lot like an error function for a variable whose average value is 473.09:
your dataset: orange; fitted error function (erf): blue
However, the agreement is not perfect and that could be because of three reasons:
There is literally no way for me to tell!
If you want to use this function, this is its definition:
import numpy as np
from scipy.special import erf
def fitted_erf(x):
c = 473.09090474
w = 37.04826334
return 50+50*erf((x-c)/(w*np.sqrt(2)))
Tests:
In [2]: fitted_erf(439) # 17 from the table
Out[2]: 17.874052406601457
In [3]: fitted_erf(457) # 34 from the table
Out[3]: 33.20270318344252
In [4]: fitted_erf(474) # 51 from the table
Out[4]: 50.97883169390196
In [5]: fitted_erf(502) # 79 from the table
Out[5]: 78.23955071273468
however I'd strongly advise you to check if a fitted function, made without knowledge of your data source, is the right tool for your task.
In case you're interested, this is the code used to obtain the parameters:
import numpy as np
from scipy.special import erf
from scipy.optimize import curve_fit
tab=np.genfromtxt('table.csv', delimiter=',', skip_header=1)
# using a 'table.csv' file generated by Google Spreadsheets
x = tab[:,0]
y = tab[:,1]
def parametric_erf(x, c, w):
return 50+50*erf((x-c)/(w*np.sqrt(2)))
pars, j = curve_fit(parametric_erf, x, y, p0=[475,10])
print(pars)
# outputs [ 473.09090474, 37.04826334]
and to generate the plot
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(x,parametric_erf(x,*pars))
plt.plot(x,y)
plt.show()
Your question is quite vague but it seems whatever calculation you do ends up with a number in the range 381-570, is this correct. You have a multiline calculation which gives this number? I'm guessing you are repeating this in many places in your code which is why you want to procedurise it?
For any calculation you can wrap it in a function. For instance:
answer = variable_1 * variable_2 + variable_3
can be written as:
def calculate(v1, v2, v3):
''' calculate the result from the inputs
'''
return v1 * v2 + v3
answer = calculate(variable_1, variable_2, variable_3)
if you would like a definitive answer then simply post your calculation and I can make it into a function for you
