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In statistics, a statistical distribution describes how the values of a random variable are spread or arranged. An empirical distribution function (EDF) is a type of distribution associated with the empirical measure of a sample. It is a step function that increases by 1/n at each of the n data points, where n is the number of observations in the sample. The value of the EDF at any specified value of the measured variable represents the fraction of observations that are less than or equal to that value. The EDF is used to approximate the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the underlying population.