"normal" is in the list in the current versions of MASS, but not that
released with R 1.8.1. Try update.packages() in R.
On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Spencer Graves wrote:
> I got the same error message in R 1.8.1 and S-Plus 6.1. Then I
> read the error message: "'start' must be a named list". Then I read
> help("fitdistr") and learned that "fitdistr" required 3 arguments, the
> third of which was "start: A named list giving the parameters to be
> optimized with initial values. This can be omitted for some of the
> named distributions (see Details)." The normal distribution was NOT one
> of the named distributions. When I supplied a named list for "start",
> it worked:
>
> > fitdistr(x, "normal", list(mean=0, sd=1))
> mean sd
> 2.97093013 0.88852969
> (0.08885297) (0.06281083)
>
> hope this helps. spencer graves
>
> Rau, Roland wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 10:24 PM
> >>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >>Subject: Re: [R] Maximum likelihood estimation in R
> >>
> >>Hello,
> >>
> >>Use
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>x=rnorm(100, mean=3, sd=1)
> >>>library(MASS)
> >>>fitdistr(x, "normal")
> >>>
> >>>
> >> mean sd
> >> 2.93666631 0.99673982
> >> (0.09967398) (0.07048015)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > For me, this example does not work. As it looks like copy+paste, I
> >guess this something platform dependent? At least I have to specify some
> >starting values as shown below. But maybe I did something wrong?
> >
> > Best,
> > Roland
> > (I am using at the moment R 1.8.1 on WinNT)
> >
> > > x=rnorm(100, mean=3, sd=1)
> > > library(MASS)
> > > fitdistr(x, "normal")
> > Error in fitdistr(x, "normal") : 'start' must be a named list
> > > fitdistr(x, "normal", start=list(mean=1, sd=0.4))
> > mean sd
> > 3.03167815 1.06637851
> > (0.10663786) (0.07539617)
> > >
> >
> >
> >+++++
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>
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--
Brian D. Ripley, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595
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