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Hope fo help - functions, fits and for cycles

3 messages · Brian Ripley, Marketa Pavlikova

#
1) add1 does this for you, more efficiently!

2) You are trying to add mydata[,expl[j]]) to a formula.  That makes no
sense in the context of the formula, and I think you need to define it
as a variable in your function and then try to add that variable.

3) update within a function is tricky because of the scope rules.  It
follows the S scope rules, AFAICS.  A much better idea is to add the
variable you want either to the data argument or to the environment of the
formula.

BTW, _ is about to be deprecated, and please do not use different
assignment operators in one piece of code.  If you must use _, put spaces
around it.  Don't make life unnecessarily hard for your readers.
On 7 Jun 2002, Marketa Pavlikova wrote:

            

  
    
#
I need a little piece of advice concerning passing data frames 
into the functions. As I do a lot of similar fits at a time, I'd like to 
write a small function doing the fits for all relevant variables 
automatically. However, I usually get error messages of the 
following kind:

  	(I present here a part of a test code).

#####################################################
# Data set:

ID<-c(1,2,3,4,5)
gender<-c(1,0,0,1,0)
age<-c(25,40,33,50,15)
G1<-c(0,0,1,2,0)#it corresponds to 
    some gene mutations
G2<-c(0,1,0,1,1)#I examine the 
    effect of each of them
G3<-c(1,1,1,1,0)#corrected for 
    "clinical" variables gender and age
response<-c(2.1,3.5,6.1,2.0,1.5)

dataset<-data.frame(ID,gender,age,G1,G2,G3,response)
GG<-c("G1","G2","G3")

#   here I construct a function that makes a basic fit, 
    then updates with each variable from GG vector.

trial_function(mydata,formule,expl,distr="binomial")
{
      n_length(expl)
    fit.low_glm(formule, family = distr, data = mydata, 
    na.action = na.exclude)

    for (j in 1:n)
    {
    fit_update(fit.low,~.+ mydata[,expl[j]])
    print(mydata[,expl[j]])
    }	
}
  
result<-
    trial(mydata=dataset,formule=response~gender+age,exp
    l=GG,distr="gaussian")

#   when update is off, no error message is printed and 
    the function works all right
#   if I untag the update, I get the following message
######Error in eval(expr, envir, enclos) : Object 
    "mydata" not found
#   although it passed and foung mydata correctle 
    beforehand.

#   If I break the variable passing standards and define 
    mydata beforehand by

mydata<-dataset
result<-
    trial(mydata=dataset,formule=response~gender+age,exp
    l=GG,distr="gaussian")

#   I get
####Error in "[.data.frame"(mydata, , expl[j]) : 
####Object "expl" not found

####################################################

Hence, it seems to me that there is some problem in passing the 
dataset into the update function inside a for cycle. When I did the 
same thing outside the function (with the same for cycle) it worked. 
Defining the variable outside the update (inside the for cycle) didn't 
help. 

Is there any workaround I could use?

Thank you very much for your help or connection to someone who 
could help,

				Marketa Pavlikova
				EuroMISE Center


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#
Thanks for a quick reply!
Oh, that's right. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem :(
I did it as well, no help. It tells me that the newly formed variable 
isn't found. In fact it works normally if outside a function. It think it 
treats mydata[,expl[j]]) as a variable (it gives that name in the fit 
output as well).
Well the scope rules must be the reason (it does the same in S+). 
But the variable _is_ in the data (it is a part od dataset, put into 
mydata). In fact all I need to do is just to point at that particular 
variable from the data set. Maybe there is another means of doing 
it?
I thought about inluding it into the formula, but I don't know how 
(something like "pasting" together the formulas?)
Oh, in fact the _ part is my colleague's code, I always use <- :) 
Thanks for advice.
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