rpart - the xval argument in rpart.control and in xpred.rpart
I have some problems in understanding the meaning of the xval argument in the two functions rpart.control and xpred.rpart. In the former it is defined as the number of cross-validations while in the latter it is defined as the number of cross-validation groups.
It is the same thing. If xval=10 then the data is divided into 10 disjoint groups. A model is fit with group 1 left out and that model is used to predict the observations in group 1; then a model is fit with group 2 left out; then group 3, ... So 10 groups = 10 fits of the model. Terry Therneau