[R] constrOptim and function with additional parameters?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 14:59:01 +0200 (MEST), "Marlene Mueller"
<Marlene.Mueller at gmx.de> wrote :

>How can I use a function with some additional input parameters
>in constrOptim? For example, something like
>
>fr <- function(x,a) {   ## Rosenbrock Banana function
>  x1 <- x[1]
>  x2 <- x[2]
>  a * (x2 - x1 * x1)^2 + (1 - x1)^2
>}
>
>where the optimum is to be found w.r.t. x. Calling
>optim(c(-1.2,1), fr, NULL, a=100) works as expected, but I fail 
>to provide the a=100 in the constrained case:
>
>>  constrOptim(c(-1.2,0.9), fr, NULL, ui=rbind(c(-1,0),c(0,-1)),
>ci=c(-1,-1),a=100)
>Error in f(theta) : Argument "a" is missing, with no default
>
>Is this a bug or is there a different solution that I miss here?

I can't spot why your use of constrOptim isn't working, but you should
be able to workaround it by doing something  like this:

applyDefaults <- function(fn, ...) {
  function(x) fn(x, ...)
}

constrOptim(c(-1.2,0.9), applyDefaults(fr, a=100), NULL,
ui=rbind(c(-1,0),c(0,-1)),ci=c(-1,-1))

The applyDefaults function creates a new function which evaluates the
old one with some of the parameters set to fixed values.

Duncan Murdoch