[r] Column standard deviation R

If you want to use it with groups, you can use:

library(plyr)
mydata<-mtcars
ddply(mydata,.(carb),colwise(sd))



  carb      mpg       cyl      disp       hp      drat        wt     qsec        vs        am      gear
1    1 6.001349 0.9759001  75.90037 19.78215 0.5548702 0.6214499 0.590867 0.0000000 0.5345225 0.5345225
2    2 5.472152 2.0655911 122.50499 43.96413 0.6782568 0.8269761 1.967069 0.5270463 0.5163978 0.7888106
3    3 1.053565 0.0000000   0.00000  0.00000 0.0000000 0.1835756 0.305505 0.0000000 0.0000000 0.0000000
4    4 3.911081 1.0327956 132.06337 62.94972 0.4575102 1.0536001 1.394937 0.4216370 0.4830459 0.6992059
5    6       NA        NA        NA       NA        NA        NA       NA        NA        NA        NA
6    8       NA        NA        NA       NA        NA        NA       NA        NA        NA        NA