[R] Error message glmer using R: “ 'what' must be a character string or a function”

[William Dunlap]

> You can reproduce the problem by having a data.frame (or anything else) in your
> environment:

I left out "called 'new'" in the above statement.  The example is correct.

Bill Dunlap
Spotfire, TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf
> Of William Dunlap
> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 8:04 AM
> To: EmmaB; r-help at r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R] Error message glmer using R: “ 'what' must be a character string or a
> function”
> 
> You can reproduce the problem by having a data.frame (or anything else) in your
> environment:
> 
> new <- data.frame(ï..VAR00001 = rep(c(TRUE,NA,FALSE), c(10,2,8)),
> random=rep(1:3,len=20), clustno=rep(c(1:5),len=20), validatedRS6=rep(0:1,len=20))
> model1<- glmer(validatedRS6 ~ random + (1|clustno), data=new, family=binomial(),
> nAGQ=3)
> # Error in do.call(new, c(list(Class = "glmResp", family = family), ll[setdiff(names(ll),  :
> #  'what' must be a character string or a function
> 
> The problem is in the call
>    do.call(new, list())
> It finds your dataset 'new' (in .GlobalEnv), which is not a function or the name of a
> function,
> not the function 'new' from the 'methods' package.  Rename your dataset, so you do not
> have anything called 'new' masking the one in package:methods, and things should work.
> 
> Write to the maintainer of the package (use maintainer("lme4") for the address) about
> the
> problem.
> 
> Bill Dunlap
> Spotfire, TIBCO Software
> wdunlap tibco.com
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf
> > Of EmmaB
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2013 4:48 PM
> > To: r-help at r-project.org
> > Subject: Re: [R] Error message glmer using R: “ 'what' must be a character string or a
> > function”
> >
> > > str(new)
> > 'data.frame':   1214 obs. of  4 variables:
> >  $ ï..VAR00001 : logi  NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
> >  $ random      : int  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
> >  $ clustno     : int  1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
> >  $ validatedRS6: int  0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Error-message-glmer-
> > using-R-what-must-be-a-character-string-or-a-function-tp4679829p4679836.html
> > Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
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