# \[ANN\] CircStats.jl, Julia version of MATLAB CircStat toolbox
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998
**Category:** Package Announcements
**Tags:** statistics
**Created:** [January 21, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998 "2022-01-21T18:03:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@babaq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/babaq)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 6:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/1 "2022-01-21T18:03:38Z")
Hi,
The circular statistics are important for many areas, and for neuroscience, the MATLAB [CircStat](https://github.com/circstat/circstat-matlab) toolbox is probably the most well-known and used one. Since i needed it for my own research, I’ve been gradually rewrite and translate them to Julia. With the kind permission of the original author, I’ve translated the whole toolbox into [CircStats.jl](https://github.com/circstat/CircStats.jl) and it’s now hosted under the [circstat](https://github.com/circstat) organization which have the same toolbox for MATLAB, Python and R.
It will be registered in a few days, and i’ll setup the CI and doc later, hope others found it useful too.
Cheers,
Alex
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### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 6:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/2 "2022-01-21T18:13:11Z")
There is [this repository](https://github.com/anowacki/CircStats.jl) with the same name but not registered. Would you have any comments on the main differences?
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### Author:  [@aplavin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aplavin)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/3 "2022-01-21T18:47:12Z")
Also note a package of mine: [DirectionalStatistics.jl](https://juliahub.com/ui/Packages/DirectionalStatistics/9bpEu/), registered about a year ago, I believe. It includes circular statistic functions, with a neat feature that all of them can operate on arbitrary ranges: `Circular.mean(array, 0..π)` for a half-circle periodicity, `Circular.mean(array, -180..+180)` for degrees, etc.
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### Author:  [@babaq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/babaq)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/4 "2022-01-21T18:50:21Z")
I wasn’t aware of the package you mentioned. With a quick peak of the repository, it seems have less functionality compare to the MATLAB CircStat toolbox. The main reason i tried to translate the MATLAB CircStat toolbox, is it’s been used in a number of publication, and it seems to be the first choice for, as far as i know, neuroscience research, so it would be nice to use the same toolbox for consistency.
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### Author:  [@babaq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/babaq)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 7:08pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/5 "2022-01-21T19:08:04Z")
I opened several issues for `Distributions` and `HypothesisTests`, and from my own perspective, i would love to see directional statistics be incorporated into these fundamental packages. But maybe a separate package like [DirectionalStatistics.jl](https://juliahub.com/ui/Packages/DirectionalStatistics/9bpEu/) would be a better place to start.
As in my previous reply, the reason for current CircStats.jl is for rich features and matureness, so i keep the changes as minimal as possible, that it feels like just a translated version of the MALLAB toolbox.
I hope the story ends at `Distributions` and `HypothesisTests`, or a separate `DirectionalStatistics`.
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### Author:  [@aplavin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aplavin)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 7:35pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/6 "2022-01-21T19:35:42Z")
Indeed, circular distributions would be best in `Distributions` (I think some already are?), and circular tests in `HypothesisTests`. It’s less obvious where descriptive statistics like mean, std, median, should end up. Not sure if `StatsBase` considers circular statistic potentially in scope. My `DirectionalStatistics.jl` package specifically focuses on descriptive statistics.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a package like yours that copies the interface/implementation from another language. As you say, it can definitely be useful for those coming from the matlab background.
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### Author:  [@babaq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/babaq)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/7 "2022-01-21T20:42:03Z")
> [@aplavin](#):
>
> Indeed, circular distributions would be best in `Distributions` (I think some already are?), and circular tests in `HypothesisTests`. It’s less obvious where descriptive statistics like mean, std, median, should end up. Not sure if `StatsBase` considers circular statistic potentially in scope. My `DirectionalStatistics.jl` package specifically focuses on descriptive statistics.
I totally agree your point, and it will be hard to extend the `mean`, `std` in the `StatsBase` without changing function signature or semantics, so it leads to either use other names, such as `circ_mean`/`circmean`/`cmean` etc. or put all descriptive statistics in another package or submodule.
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### Author:  [@aplavin](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/aplavin)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2022, 7:28am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/8 "2022-01-22T07:28:44Z")
It is possible to extend regular functions like `mean` to work on circular data based on types. In a sense, it’s more natural: circular structure is first and foremost a property of data, so a reasonable approach is to encode this in a type.
Like, `mean(circular(X))` instead of `Circular.mean(X)`. A practical advantage is that one creates a circular dataset `X = circular(...)`, and then applies regular statistical functions `mean(X)`, `std(X)` without explicitly specifying the circularity each time.
Another possibility is to make _values_ themselves aware of the circular structure. As in, `a = circular(1), b = circular(2), ...`: it becomes impossible to mess up and directly apply non-circular statistics to them. All of `distance(a, b)`, `mean([a, b])` and so on would work automatically.
The first `mean(circular(X))` approach is similar to what was discussed in `StatsBase` regarding the future of weighted statistics: `mean(weighted(X, ws))` vs current `mean(X, weights(ws))`. Not sure what happened to that discussion though.
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### Author:  [@babaq](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/babaq)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2022, 8:16pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/ann-circstats-jl-julia-version-of-matlab-circstat-toolbox/74998/9 "2022-01-22T20:16:27Z")
I like the idea of a circular type, just to be a wrapper of a `Number` of `AbstractArray`, so that `circular(X;deg=false)` could handle radius°ree easily, but it may require all circular related `Distribution` and `HypothesisTests` to be built on this type. Nevertheless, This just solve the syntax consistency issues, the underlining functionality would still based on `Number` and `AbstractArray`, it’s debatable whether to export these underling functions that could work directly on circular data.