[R] Factorial, L-moments, and overflows

[jim holtman]

It sounds like you are using 'integers'.  Have you considered
'numeric' (floating point)?  You can always look at the function
'samlmu' to see what it does in this case.

On 9/16/07, Pedro.Rodriguez at sungard.com <Pedro.Rodriguez at sungard.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> In the package POT, there is a function that computes the L-moments of a given sample (samlmu). However, to compute those L-moments, one needs to obtain the total number of combinations between two numbers, which, by the way, requires the use of a factorial. See, for example, Hosking (1990 , p. 113).
>
> How does the function "samlmu" in the package POT avoids overflows?
>
> I was trying to build from scratch a R function similar to "samlmu" and ran into overflows (Just for my educational purposes :o) ). Is there a trick that I am missing to avoid overflows in the factorial function?
>
> Thank you very much for your time.
>
> Pedro N. Rodriguez
> SSRN Homepage: http://ssrn.com/author=412141/
> Homepage: http://www.pnrodriguez.com/
>
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-- 
Jim Holtman
Cincinnati, OH
+1 513 646 9390

What is the problem you are trying to solve?