[Bug/Inconsistency] Please Convert Warning 'Messages' to Warnings

[emstruong]

Describe the bug Some of the 'warnings' from cmdstanr are actually 'messages' and not warnings. This can be messy in Monte Carlo simulations.

https://github.com/stan-dev/cmdstanr/blob/bceb482c7490502f57adff3c851e591ec9a91446/R/utils.R#L287-L310

Expected behavior I expected the warning messages to actually be warnings and I would really appreciate if they were warnings

Operating system Ubuntu 22.04

CmdStanR version number 0.8.1

[jgabry]

Hi @emstruong thanks for the suggestions. Can you say a bit more about what makes this "messy" in Monte Carlo simulations? In the past we've had complaints about too many warnings, which is one reason this is a message.

[emstruong]

Ah, I see... Well, at least in terms of monitoring simulations from library(SimDesign), warning + error messages are logged to monitor the progress/state of the simulation. Things that are not warnings or errors clog up the logs of what's happening. Also, there's the ability to manage/suppress specific warnings + errors that are already known to occur.

Regarding the complaints, couldn't its verbosity be controlled via an argument? Or perhaps whether it's a message or a warning be controlled, as in lme4? https://github.com/lme4/lme4/blob/779bc7098b19b9aef5eab6df2ae263e06e24ddc4/R/lmerControl.R

[jgabry]

Well, at least in terms of monitoring simulations from library(SimDesign), warning + error messages are logged to monitor the progress/state of the simulation. Things that are not warnings or errors clog up the logs of what's happening.

I see, I didn't know that (never used SimDesign before).

For the moment one thing you can do is set diagnostics=NULL when calling the sample() method, which will prevent any diagnostic messages from being printed and clogging up the logs. Then if you want to know if there were divergences you can retrieve the number of divergences with fit$diagnostic_summary(quiet=TRUE). I suppose you could even create your own wrapper function to use in your simulations if you want actual warnings:

# I haven't tested this but something like this should work
fit_model <- function(model, ...) {
  fit <- model$sample(..., diagnostics = NULL) # suppress diagnostic messages
  divergences <- sum(fit$diagnostic_summary(quiet=TRUE)$num_divergent) 
  if (divergences > 0) {
    warning("There were ", divergences, " divergences")
  }
  return(fit)
}

Or perhaps whether it's a message or a warning be controlled, as in lme4?

Yeah, I think something like this would be reasonable. I'd prefer to give the user an option to make it a warning rather than forcing it by changing (and hardcoding) all the messages to warnings, since at this point people are used to the current situation. But I agree an option would be good.

[emstruong]

I see, I didn't know that (never used SimDesign before).

Ah... Well I think what I was meaning was that when a lot of different models are repeatedly fitted within a single session, as may be the case in multiverse analyses, large production cases, or Monte Carlo Simulation designs, I think the small things like message, warning and error handling can become quite important. As there's not much of any other way to automate interacting with the model... Which I sense is largely the opposite of the way Bayesian analysis should be--meaningful priors and thoughtful investigation of posteriors.

For the moment one thing you can do is set diagnostics=NULL when calling the sample() method, which will prevent any diagnostic messages from being printed and clogging up the logs. Then if you want to know if there were divergences you can retrieve the number of divergences with fit$diagnostic_summary(quiet=TRUE). I suppose you could even create your own wrapper function to use in your simulations if you want actual warnings:

# I haven't tested this but something like this should work
fit_model <- function(model, ...) {
  fit <- model$sample(..., diagnostics = NULL) # suppress diagnostic messages
  divergences <- sum(fit$diagnostic_summary(quiet=TRUE)$num_divergent) 
  if (divergences > 0) {
    warning("There were ", divergences, " divergences")
  }
  return(fit)
}

I think this could work--although it may or may not work with brms. I'll have to check

Yeah, I think something like this would be reasonable. I'd prefer to give the user an option to make it a warning rather than forcing it by changing (and hardcoding) all the messages to warnings, since at this point people are used to the current situation. But I agree an option would be good.

I agree.

[jgabry]

Yeah I'm not sure if brms gives you access to the CmdStanR fitted model object. If not, you could use brms::make_stancode() and brms::make_standata() to get the Stan code and the data in the right format and then use CmdStanR itself.