[R] density with weights missing values

[Bert Gunter]

My point (confusingly made!) is that documented behavior is all you
should expect. The docs say that weights must be non-negative numeric.
If they aren't...

"Consistency" of behavior among different functions is highly
subjective -- it depends exactly on what one considers to be
"consistent", nicht wahr? And, of course, with thousands of packages
and hundreds of weight functions used for different purposes, this
seems a practical impossibility here.

However, I would agree that given R's "organic" growth over time,
"jarring" inconsistencies (i.e. that most would agree are
inconsistent) may exist. This may be such a case. But, again, all you
can do is follow the docs whether or not the behavior meets your
"reasonable" expectations.

Just my opinion, of course. Consume at your own risk.

Bert Gunter

"The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
and sticking things into it."
-- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )

On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 9:13 AM matthias-gondan <matthias-gondan using gmx.de> wrote:
>
> The thing is that for na.rm=TRUE, I would expect the weights corresponding to the missing x to be removed, as well. Like in weighted.mean. So this one shouldn't raise an error,
>
> density(c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, NA), na.rm=TRUE, weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1))
>
> Or am I missing something?
>
> -------- Ursprüngliche Nachricht --------
> Von: Bert Gunter <bgunter.4567 using gmail.com>
> Datum: 12.07.21 16:25 (GMT+01:00)
> An: Matthias Gondan <matthias-gondan using gmx.de>
> Cc: r-help using r-project.org
> Betreff: Re: [R] density with weights missing values
>
> The behavior is as documented AFAICS.
>
> na.rm
> logical; if TRUE, missing values are removed from x. If FALSE any
> missing values cause an error.
>
> The default is FALSE.
>
> weights
> numeric vector of non-negative observation weights.
>
> NA is not a non-negative numeric.
>
> Bert Gunter
>
> "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
> and sticking things into it."
> -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )
>
> Bert Gunter
>
> "The trouble with having an open mind is that people keep coming along
> and sticking things into it."
> -- Opus (aka Berkeley Breathed in his "Bloom County" comic strip )
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 6:10 AM Matthias Gondan <matthias-gondan using gmx.de> wrote:
> >
> > Weighted mean behaves differently:
> > • weight is excluded for missing x
> > • no warning for sum(weights) != 1
> >
> > > weighted.mean(c(1, 2, 3, 4), weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1))
> > [1] 2.5
> > > weighted.mean(c(1, 2, 3, NA), weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1))
> > [1] NA
> > > weighted.mean(c(1, 2, 3, NA), weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1), na.rm=TRUE)
> > [1] 2
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Von: Richard O'Keefe
> > Gesendet: Montag, 12. Juli 2021 13:18
> > An: Matthias Gondan
> > Betreff: Re: [R] density with weights missing values
> >
> > Does your copy of R say that the weights must add up to 1?
> > ?density doesn't say that in mine.   But it does check.
> >
> > On Mon, 12 Jul 2021 at 22:42, Matthias Gondan <matthias-gondan using gmx.de> wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear R users,
> > >
> > > This works as expected:
> > >
> > > • plot(density(c(1,2, 3, 4, 5, NA), na.rm=TRUE))
> > >
> > > This raises an error
> > >
> > > • plot(density(c(1,2, 3, 4, 5, NA), na.rm=TRUE, weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)))
> > > • plot(density(c(1,2, 3, 4, 5, NA), na.rm=TRUE, weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1, NA)))
> > >
> > > This seems to work (it triggers a warning that the weights don’t add up to 1, which makes sense*):
> > >
> > > • plot(density(c(1,2, 3, 4, 5, NA), na.rm=TRUE, weights=c(1, 1, 1, 1, 1)))
> > >
> > > Questions
> > >
> > > • But shouldn’t the na.rm filter also filter the corresponding weights?
> > > • Extra question: In case the na.rm filter is changed to filter the weights, the check for sum(weights) == 1 might trigger false positive warnings since the weights might not add up to 1 anymore
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > >
> > > Matthias
> > >
> > >
> > >         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> > >
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> >
> >         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >
> > ______________________________________________
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