Thanks for the info. some notes below:

--- On Mon, 5/18/09, Max Kuhn <mxkuhn@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Max Kuhn <mxkuhn@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [R] bagged importance estimates in earth problem
To: "Joseph Retzer" <joe_retzer@yahoo.com>
Cc: gavin.simpson@ucl.ac.uk, "R help" <r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch>
Date: Monday, May 18, 2009, 1:03 PM

> If you read my message closely,  you'll see I'm indicating that the check
> error "may" explain why  carat 4.15 _is not available in CRAN binaries_.
> Because of this (not having the latest version) I suspect varImp is
> returning the error I detailed.

Ok, but your diagnosis of the issue may have been careless.

More speculation than diagnosis, but that's your opinion.

> Can you provide information as to why 4.15 is not available? That would be
> useful.

It is available here:

   http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/caret

Do you mean a binary for OS X? If so, you can look more closely at the
"caret Results" link:

   http://www.r-project.org/nosvn/R.check/r-release-macosx-ix86/caret-00check.html

you'll see it doesn't build because one of the dependencies (proxy)
isn't installed on the test machine. The package homepage listed in
the DESCRIPTION file shows the package building on OS X without any
errors. There is a OS X binary for the latest version there.

I suggest using the OS X disk (or the apple website) to install Xcode
and build packages from source. You're almost always better off
installing packages in that way.

This is very useful information. I did not realize this was best practice and/or necessary generally speaking. Thanks for letting me know. 

Also, I did look closely at the source code. The latest release is 4.12 which compiled with errors on my machine, not sure why.

> Also, as far a reproducible example is concerned, I noted that the example
> in bagEarth produces the same error as my original problem (i.e. I can
> reproduce the error on my machine with that code/data which is also
> available to others). Again, a more careful read of my original email would
> have made that clear.

It is not reproducible if it works for me and others.

It is reproducible using the latest binaries on CRAN, I _think_.  However I don't know of anyone other than myself who has tried. 

Sorry for the frustration, but in your original email you didn't
follow the posting guide: email the package author first, provide
information about your system or an example that I can try.

No need to apologize, I appreciate knowing the source of the problem. I should have contacted you directly however it did not seem to be an issue with the package, my mistake.

If you dig around a little, I think the issues would be more clear,
especially why there is no OS X binary.

Running code with the latest CRAN binaries available and having problems seems to me to justify a brief note asking for help. Also note that I checked the documentation, the CRAN binaries and source files and past listserve messages. I appreciate your information though since it makes clear what the problem actually is. 


Max



      
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