Compute density using Rcpp sugar function [duplicate] - rcpp

Question

From R, I'm trying to run sourceCpp on this file:
#include <RcppArmadillo.h>
// [[Rcpp::depends(RcppArmadillo)]]
using namespace arma;
using namespace Rcpp;
// [[Rcpp::export]]
vec dnormLog(vec x, vec means, vec sds) {
int n = x.size();
vec res(n);
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
res[i] = log(dnorm(x[i], means[i], sds[i]));
}
return res;
}
See this answer to see where I got the function from. This throws the error:
no matching function for call to 'dnorm4'
Which is the exact error I was hoping to prevent by using the loop, since the referenced answer mentions that dnorm is only vectorized with respect to its first argument. I fear the answer is obvious, but I've tried adding R:: before the dnorm, tried using NumericVector instead of vec, without using log() in front. No luck. However, adding R:: before dnorm does produce a separate error:
too few arguments to function call, expected 4, have 3; did you mean '::dnorm4'?
Which is not fixed by replacing dnorm above with R::dnorm4.

Answer 1

There are two nice teachable moments here:
Pay attention to namespaces. If in doubt, don't go global.
Check the headers for the actual definitions. You missed the fourth argument in the scalar version R::dnorm().
Here is a repaired version, included is a second variant you may find interesting:
#include <RcppArmadillo.h>
// [[Rcpp::depends(RcppArmadillo)]]
// [[Rcpp::export]]
arma::vec dnormLog(arma::vec x, arma::vec means, arma::vec sds) {
int n = x.size();
arma::vec res(n);
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
res[i] = std::log(R::dnorm(x[i], means[i], sds[i], FALSE));
}
return res;
}
// [[Rcpp::export]]
arma::vec dnormLog2(arma::vec x, arma::vec means, arma::vec sds) {
int n = x.size();
arma::vec res(n);
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
res[i] = R::dnorm(x[i], means[i], sds[i], TRUE);
}
return res;
}
/*** R
dnormLog( c(0.1,0.2,0.3), rep(0.0, 3), rep(1.0, 3))
dnormLog2(c(0.1,0.2,0.3), rep(0.0, 3), rep(1.0, 3))
*/
When we source this, both return the same result because the R API allows us to ask for logarithms to be taken.
R> sourceCpp("/tmp/dnorm.cpp")
R> dnormLog( c(0.1,0.2,0.3), rep(0.0, 3), rep(1.0, 3))
[,1]
[1,] -0.923939
[2,] -0.938939
[3,] -0.963939
R> dnormLog2(c(0.1,0.2,0.3), rep(0.0, 3), rep(1.0, 3))
[,1]
[1,] -0.923939
[2,] -0.938939
[3,] -0.963939
R>