[R-sig-ME] bug in identical()? [Was: Failure to load lme4 on Mac]

[Simon Urbanek]

Daniel,

thanks for the test case. I did run it in valgrind but nothing showed up, however ... 

I'm starting to have a suspicion that this has something to do with identical() - look at this:

> identical(M1,M2)
[1] FALSE
> all(serialize(M1,NULL)==serialize(M2,NULL))
[1] TRUE
> identical(unserialize(serialize(M1,NULL)),unserialize(serialize(M2,NULL)))
[1] FALSE
> identical(unserialize(serialize(M1,NULL)),unserialize(serialize(M1,NULL)))
[1] FALSE

So I think this may be a bug in identical() mainly because of the last one. I'll need to take identical() apart to see where it fails ... I'm CCing this to R-devel as the current issue seems more like an R issue so more eyes can have a look ...

Cheers,
Simon


[FWIW this is tested in today's R-devel (with valgrind level 2) on x86_64 OS X 10.6.4 with lme4 from CRAN and Matrix form R-devel Recommended]


On Jul 17, 2010, at 4:50 AM, Daniel Myall wrote:

> I've done some further testing (R 2.11.1) and the issue is not limited to Leopard.
> 
> Using the test:
> 
> library(lme4)
> y <- (1:20)*pi
> x <- (1:20)^2
> group <- gl(2,10)
> for (i in 1:10) {
>  M1 <- lmer (y ~     x + (    x | group))
>  M2 <- lmer (y ~     x + (    x | group))
>  print(identical(M1,M2))
> }
> 
> For CRAN lme4 and Matrix:
> 
> 32 bit on Leopard: R CMD check fails; different results (on most runs)
> 32 bit on Snow Leopard: R CMD check passes; different results (on some runs).
> 64 bit on Snow Leopard: R CMD check passes; identical results
> 
> For SVN version of Matrix with CRAN lme4:
> 
> 32 bit on Snow Leopard: different results (on all runs).
> 64 bit on Snow Leopard: different results (on all runs)
> 
> For SVN version of Matrix with SVN lme4a:
> 
> 32 bit on Snow Leopard: different results (on all runs).
> 64 bit on Snow Leopard: identical results
> 
> I couldn't reproduce on Linux 32/64bit. Is it time to jump into valgrind to try and find the cause?
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel
> 
> 
> 
> On 17/07/10 5:51 PM, John Maindonald wrote:
>> In principle, maybe a Snow Leopard version might be posted
>> as an alternative, if someone can provide one.  But I take it
>> that the issue is now a bit wider than tests that fail on Leopard
>> vs passing on Snow Leopard?
>>   
> 
>