Covariance bug in R-1.8.0
lederer at trium.de writes:
R-1.8.0 seems to calculate wrong covariances, when the argument of cov() is a matrix or a data frame. The following should produce a matrix of zeroes and NaNs:
...
Under 1.9.1 (Linux) and 1.9.0 (Windows) i get the expected matrix of zeroes and NaNs. This example is not very special. Under R-1.8.0 cov produced wrong result for any random matrix i tried.
Presumably, this is the same as PR#4646.
Doesn't this mean, that *any* result obtained under R 1.8.0 is unreliable?
It means that covariances and correlations are sometimes computed incorrectly.
By the way, i just recompiled R-1.8.0 from source under Linux and tried 'make check'. All tests were ok.
Yes. We don't release versions that don't pass their own tests.
Does there exist a more detailed set of tests, which could insure that at least the most basic R functions work correctly?
We add regression tests as we discover and fix bugs. We can't fix old versions retroactively though, we release patch versions (e.g. 1.8.1) instead.
O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3 c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907