[Rd] typo in cov()? var() fails on NA in R 2.7.2 but not R 2.6.1

[Andrew Piskorski]

I recently started using R 2.7.2, and noticed a surprising change in
the behavior of var() on NA data:

R 2.6.1 (Patched), 2007-11-26, svn.rev 43541, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu:

  > stdev(rep(NA,3), na.rm=F)
  [1] NA
  > stdev(rep(NA,3), na.rm=T)
  [1] NA
  > var(rep(NA,3), na.rm=T, use="complete.obs")
  [1] NA

R 2.7.2 (Patched), 2008-09-02, svn.rev 46491, x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu:

  > stdev(rep(NA,3), na.rm=F)
  [1] NA

  > stdev(rep(NA,3), na.rm=T)
  Error in var(x, na.rm = na.rm) : no complete element pairs

  Enter a frame number, or 0 to exit
  1: stdev(rep(NA, 3), na.rm = T)
  2: var(x, na.rm = na.rm)
  Selection: 0

  > var(rep(NA,3), na.rm=T, use="complete.obs")
  Error in var(rep(NA, 3), na.rm = T, use = "complete.obs") :
    no complete element pairs

Is this change intentional?  Also, what is causing it?  Looking, I see
no changes in var() at all, so the new behavior must be due to a
change in what this call does:

  .Internal(cov(x, y, na.method, FALSE))

The R 2.7.2 cov() also has this weird line:

  else if (na.method != 3L) {
 
Note the "L" in the "3L".  A typo?  The older 2.6.1 cov() just has "3"
on that line, no "L".

Interactively redefining cov() to remove the "L" makes no difference in my var() calls, but that could b

The original source file seems to be:

  src/library/stats/R/cor.R 

svn annotate says that 3L line was last changed nearly a year ago, way
back in rev 43302:

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  r43302 | ripley | 2007-10-29 14:50:18 -0400 (Mon, 29 Oct 2007) | 2 lines
  make cor/cov a little less inconsistent

The strange 3L line occurs twice in that file, in both cor() and cov():

  $ grep -n 3L cor.R  
  36:    else if (na.method != 3L) { 
  118:    else if (na.method != 3L) { 

That line might not be the cause of my "no complete element pairs"
problem (I'm not at all sure), but it does look suspicious.

-- 
Andrew Piskorski <atp at piskorski.com>
http://www.piskorski.com/