Video: Ruby to Parse CSV data, and Visualize it within GoogleCharts – NFL Player Weight Averages by Draft Year

Fun with random data. Find, investigate, and plot.

I parse an NFL dataset, and visualize it in a GoogleCharts Column Chart.

nfldraftyear

 

The video above details the steps taken

  • Download NFL CSV data from reddit post
  • Open downloaded file with OpenOffice and notepad to check it out
  • Create an Aptana Ruby Project
  • Copy CSV data into a specific directory
  • Write Ruby code to: Read Each line of the csv file, Test by outputting each player name (3rd column)
  • Figure out what to chart
  • Find specific columns within the dataset (Weight, draft_year)

Ruby:

  • Adjust ruby code to get columns, confirm for integrity
  • Create variables for weight and draft year
  • Create Hash’s for Counts and Averages
  • Populate the year hash count variable as you iterate through each row:
  •         – If the year hash count variable doesn’t have a year, create a new hash entry, specifying the year as the key, and setting the initial value to 1
  •         – If the year hash count variable already contains a key with the next row’s year, then get its value, increment it by 1, and update the pair.
  • Do the same thing for the weight averages hash, only with weight. Accumulate weight totals for each year.
  • cast weight and draft year variables into integers
  • iterate through year count hash.
  • Create new has with year and weight averages hash.
  • Perform calculations on each pair in year hash count. Cast pairs into float types, divide weight accumulated totals, by counts.
  • Sort new hash
  • output the contents of new hash.
  • fix mistakes.

Google Charts html formatting:

  • Obtain a Column Chart from GoogleCharts and save it locally as an html.
  • Adjust example properties with note pad.

Ruby:

  • Adjust output into appropriate JSON
  • Enjoy your chart.

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