[Rd] A bug in princomp(), perhaps?

[Ben Bolker]

> 

FWIW this seems to be a FAQ:


https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2003-July/027018.html

http://thr3ads.net/r-devel/2013/01/
   2171832-Re-na.omit-option-in-prcomp-formula-interface-only

http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/
  na-omit-option-in-prcomp-formula-interface-only-td4373533.html

And two StackOverflow questions (the latter's a bit tangential):

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12078291/
   r-function-prcomp-fails-with-nas-values-even-though-nas-are-allowed

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23421438/what-was-wrong-with-running-princomp-in-r/23446938#23446938

  (Sorry for broken URLs and random assortment of mailing list
aggregators.)

  I appreciate Gavin's points that implementing this stuff for
princomp.default is difficult/problematic, but I second Ravi's
request for a little  more clarification in the help  text; it's
quite easy to miss the fact that 'na.action' is defined for
princomp.formula but not for princomp.default.  Perhaps just
"Note that setting na.action works for princomp.formula, but
not for princomp.default" (under the "na.action" argument description).

Gavin Simpson <ucfagls <at> gmail.com> writes:



> > On 30 May 2014 06:33, Ravi Varadhan <ravi.varadhan <at> jhu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you, Peter.  Now I see that.
> >
> > I still think the documentation of `na.action' 
> > can be made more explicit
> > to state that this option is only used for princomp.formula.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Ravi
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: peter dalgaard [mailto:pdalgd <at> gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 5:15 AM
> > To: Ravi Varadhan
> > Cc: r-devel <at> r-project.org
> > Subject: Re: [Rd] A bug in princomp(), perhaps?
> >
> > It's only documented to work for princomp.formula; 
> > other methods do not
> > know about na.action.
> >
> > -pd
> >