[Rd] Error in help file for quantile()

(Ted Harding) Ted.Harding at manchester.ac.uk
Mon Mar 30 00:08:52 CEST 2009


On 29-Mar-09 20:43:33, Rob Hyndman wrote:
> For some reason, the help file on quantile() says "Missing values are
> ignored" in the description of the x argument. Yet this is only true
> if na.rm=TRUE. I suggest the help file is amended to remove the words
> "Missing values are ignored".
> Rob

True enough -- in that if, as in the default, na.rm == FALSE,
then applying quantile() to a vector with NAs yields the error
message:

quantile(X1)
# Error in quantile.default(X1) : 
#   missing values and NaN's not allowed if 'na.rm' is FALSE

So either you have na.rm==TRUE, in which case it doesn't need
saying that "Missing values are ignored" (unless you really
want to spell it out in the form "Missing values are ignored if
called with na.rm=TRUE; otherwise an error message is produced"),
or you have na.rm==FALSE, in which case you get the error message
and know where you stand.

Ted.

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Date: 29-Mar-09                                       Time: 23:08:50
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