On 11/13/2006 2:24 PM, A.I. McLeod wrote:
>> I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. You've got an empty sum
>> in the formula for the lag 1 autocovariance:
>>
>> sum_{i=1}^0 phi_i phi_{i+1}
>>
>> R is assuming that's not what you meant and is reporting it as an error.
>> If it gave you any value, it should be zero, not phi^2.
>>
> ********************************************
> I agree the empty sum which is the lag 1 autocovariance should be zero but
> this is the SECOND term in $acf output.
> For the first term,
> 1) if demean=F, it is variance which is phi^2 as I suggested
> 2) if demean=T, it is the variance/variance = 0/0 which I said should best be
> 1
Okay, I see what you mean now. Yes, I agree acf should return lag 0
autocorrelations and autocovariances even for a series of length 1.
I'll take a look at the code.
Duncan Murdoch
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Duncan Murdoch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <r-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2006 11:22 AM
> Subject: Re: [Rd] bug in acf (PR#9360)
>
>
>> On 11/13/2006 10:30 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>> Full_Name: Ian McLeod
>>> Version: 2.3.1
>>> OS: Windows
>>> Submission from: (NULL) (129.100.76.136)
>>>
>>>
>>>> There is a simple bug in acf as shown below:
>>>>
>>>> z <- 1
>>>> acf(z,lag.max=1,plot=FALSE)
>>>> Error in acf(z, lag.max = 1, plot = FALSE) :
>>>> 'lag.max' must be at least 1
>>>>
>>> This is certainly a bug.
>>
>> I'd say it's a documentation bug, rather than a code bug.
>>>
>>> There are two problems:
>>>
>>> (i) the error message is wrong since lag.max is set to 1. Perhaps, if the
>>> function acf can not be used for in this situaiton, a different error
>>> message
>>> would be more appropriate. I understand why this might be done but I don't
>>> think it is the best approach.
>>
>> What happens is that lag.max is reduced to length(z)-1, which is zero in
>> your case. This change should be mentioned in the documentation.
>>
>>> (ii) Please look at the function GetB which is attached. This is part a
>>> computation for a fast algorithm for exact mle of mean. Usually phi here
>>> are
>>> the coefficients from a high order AR but when I tried for AR(1) I got the
>>> error
>>> message. So the workaround is given. Notice that I use:
>>>
>>> p*as.vector(acf(phi,lag.max=p,type="covariance",demean=FALSE,plot=FALSE)$acf)
>>>
>>> so what I expect to get when p=length(phi)=1 is just phi^2. This is what
>>> happens in Mathematica with ListCorrelate[{phi},{phi}]. When you have
>>> acf="correlation" and demean=TRUE then one gets 0/0 which should be defined
>>> as 1
>>> in this situation.
>>
>> I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. You've got an empty sum
>> in the formula for the lag 1 autocovariance:
>>
>> sum_{i=1}^0 phi_i phi_{i+1}
>>
>> R is assuming that's not what you meant and is reporting it as an error.
>> If it gave you any value, it should be zero, not phi^2.
>>
>> Duncan Murdoch
>>
>>>
>>> Probably if the R authors just want to use acf for data analysis they may
>>> simply
>>> choose to require length(x)>1 in acf(x,...) although I don't see the harm
>>> in my
>>> suggestion either.
>
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