[R] How to pass eval.max from lme() to nlminb?

[Berwin A Turlach]

G'day Andrew,

>>>>> "AR" == Andrew Robinson <A.Robinson at ms.unimelb.edu.au> writes:

    AR> I'm fitting a complex mixed-effects model that requires
    AR> numerous iterations and function evaluations.  I note that
    AR> nlminb accepts a list of control parameters, including
    AR> eval.max.  Is there a way to change the default eval.max value
    AR> for nlminb when it is being called from lme?
Looking at the code of lme.formula, I can only find this snippet:

[...]
        optRes <- if (controlvals$opt == "nlminb") {
            nlminb(c(coef(lmeSt)), function(lmePars) -logLik(lmeSt, 
                lmePars), control = list(iter.max = controlvals$msMaxIter, 
                trace = controlvals$msVerbose))
        }
        else {
            optim(c(coef(lmeSt)), function(lmePars) -logLik(lmeSt, 
                lmePars), control = list(trace = controlvals$msVerbose, 
                maxit = controlvals$msMaxIter, reltol = if (numIter == 
                  0) controlvals$msTol else 100 * .Machine$double.eps), 
                method = controlvals$optimMethod)
        }
[...]

this seems to indicate that you can only change the values for
'iter.max' and 'trace' in the call to 'nlminb()' by setting values for
'msMaxIter' and 'msVerbose', using 'lmeControl', when calling 'lme()'.

Cheers,

        Berwin

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