passing varargs to my objective function?

[floswald]

is there a way to have an objective function

f(x,a,b)

where x is the variable I want to minimize over, and a,b are parameters that are set somewhere else in the program? asked differently: can we have?

optimize(f::Function,vargs...)

[johnmyleswhite]

Use a closure instead

-- John

On Sep 29, 2014, at 9:52 AM, Florian Oswald notifications@github.com wrote:

is there a way to have an objective function

f(x,a,b)
where x is the variable I want to minimize over, and a,b are parameters that are set somewhere else in the program? asked differently: can we have?

optimize(f::Function,vargs...)
—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[timholy]

I think the docs call these "anonymous functions" rather than closures.

If performance becomes a concern (which seems a bit unlikely, but who knows), see also FastAnonymous.jl.

[floswald]

wouldn't have made it without the anonymous function pointer. thanks both!

y = 1.1
z = 8.4
optimize((x)->2x^2+3x+y-z, -2.0, 1.0)

[floswald]

can i just say that this is awesome? first time i see this. compared to R's environment() or worrying about the ordering in the varargs to the objective, that beats the lot of them.

[johnmyleswhite]

Glad this helped. Closures are possible in R as well. The R community is just not very sophisticated about programming, so basic CS concepts tend not to talked about in public.