bugGNU Octave - Bugs: bug #57964, polyfit() results for polynomial...

 
 

bug #57964: polyfit() results for polynomial degree greater or equal than number of data

Submitter:  José Luis García Pallero <jgpallero>
Submitted:  Fri 06 Mar 2020 04:23:45 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Octave Function Severity:  3 - Normal
Priority:  5 - Normal Item Group:  Missed Error or Warning
Status:  Fixed Assigned to:  None
Originator Name:  Open/Closed:  * Closed
Release:  * dev Operating System:  * Any
Fixed Release:  None Planned Release:  None
* Mandatory Fields

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Sun 14 Mar 2021 01:12:38 AM UTC, comment #4: 

I fixed this back in June 2020 in this changeset http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave/rev/39e6308e4251.

Forgot to close out this bug report.  Marking as fixed.

Rik <rik5>
Group administrator
Tue 10 Mar 2020 03:39:40 PM UTC, comment #3: 

Changing the item group to "Missed Error or Warning".  Bumping the Release to "dev".  Marking as confirmed.

At the very least, it would be good to issue a warning.  The return value for the degrees of freedom output "df" is -1 which is nonsensical.

I tested a bit with Matlab and it does return consistent outputs for the second and third outputs S and MU.


[P, S, MU] = polyfit (...)


However, the values are definitely not unique.  If I call polyfit with a single output I get


[p] = polyfit ([1 2],[3 4],2)
p = [0.3333  0   2.6667]


But when I call it with three outputs I get


[p, s, mu] = polyfit ([1 2],[3 4],2)
p = [0   0.7071  3.5]


Given this pseudo-randomness, I'm not sure we have to exactly match Matlab behavior so much as issue a warning and be consistent.


Rik <rik5>
Group administrator
Sat 07 Mar 2020 02:20:41 PM UTC, comment #2: 

I just looked into the matlab documentation, and it seems to be undocumented (searching for "unique" on the polyfit page does not find anything). But yes, it would not hurt if in polyfit.m a small additional check would be introduced to test whether n is larger or equal to the number of data points, in which case n would temporarily be decreased to the number of data points minus one for the computation, and then the output be zero-padded to a length of n, and a warning emitted. Such usages will always indicate either an error or a situation in a user's program that was not foreseen.  However, if the other output arguments are required, it would perhaps become messy, because of course also all these matrices have to be expanded, and offhand I do not know whether this is trivial.

Michael Leitner <mleitner>
Fri 06 Mar 2020 04:49:50 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Well, I was playing with other values and I noted that in such cases Matlab does not perform, as I wrote in my firs comment, "the problem is solved using the correct maximum degree according to the data". But anyway in this cases the solutions provided by Matlab and Octave are not the same. For example, in Matlab:

p=polyfit([1 2],[3 4],2)
Warning: Polynomial is not unique; degree >= number of data points.
> In polyfit (line 70)

p =

   0.333333333333333                   0   2.666666666666667

and in Octave

p=polyfit([1 2],[3 4],2)
p =

  -0.071429   1.214286   1.857143


If I call the function with a second output argument I can see that the R matrix of the QR decomposition is the same in both cases, but with different column ordering (in this case the QR decomposition must be performed with pivoting). In effect, in Octave we have

>> [p,s]=polyfit([1 2],[3 4],2)
p =

  -0.071429   1.214286   1.857143

s =

  scalar structure containing the fields:

    yf =

       3.0000   4.0000

    X =

       1   1   1
       4   2   1

    R =

      -4.12311  -1.21268  -2.18282
       0.00000  -0.72761  -0.48507

    C =

       NaN   NaN   NaN
       NaN   NaN   NaN
       NaN   NaN   NaN

    df = -1
    normr =    1.2561e-15

so the QR decomposition was performed with pivoting as

>> [q,r,p]=qr(s.X)
q =

  -0.24254  -0.97014
  -0.97014   0.24254

r =

  -4.12311  -1.21268  -2.18282
   0.00000  -0.72761  -0.48507

p =

Permutation Matrix

   1   0   0
   0   0   1
   0   1   0


Apparently Matlab does not use pivoting in the QR, but I can't check it as the polyfit() output struct in Matlab does not store the Vandermonde matrix of the problem, but if I use the Octave's one I obtain

>> [q,r]=qr(s.X)
q =

  -0.24254  -0.97014
  -0.97014   0.24254

r =

  -4.12311  -2.18282  -1.21268
   0.00000  -0.48507  -0.72761

which is the Matlab's result.

So my original submission must not be considered a bug nor incorrect result, but an incompatibility with Matlab.

José Luis García Pallero <jgpallero>
Fri 06 Mar 2020 04:23:45 PM UTC, original submission:  

Hello:

If I call polyfit as

polyfit(1,2,0)

I obtain the expected result of

ans =  2

But if I call the function with a polynomial degree greater than 0 I obtain a vector of strange results

polyfit(1,2,3)
ans =

   0.50000   0.50000   0.50000   0.50000

while Matlab gives the correct solution (the problem is solved using the correct maximum degree according to the data) plus a warning

>> polyfit(1,2,3)
Warning: Polynomial is not unique; degree >= number of data points.
> In polyfit (line 70)

ans =

     2     0     0     0


Is this Octave's behavior a bug or am I misunderstanding something?

José Luis García Pallero <jgpallero>

 

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    Follow 5 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2021-03-14 rik5 StatusConfirmed Fixed
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed
    2020-03-10 rik5 Item GroupIncorrect Result Missed Error or Warning
        StatusNone Confirmed
        Release5.2.0 dev

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