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FCLASSIFICATION directive

Forms a classification set for each term in a formula, breaks a formula up into separate formulae (one for each term), and applies a limit to the number of factors and variates in the terms of a formula.

Options

FACTORIAL = scalar Limit on the number of factors and variates in each term; default * i.e. no limit
NTERMS = scalar Outputs the number of terms in the formula
CLASSIFICATION = pointer Saves a list of all the factors and variates in the TERMS formula
OUTFORMULA = formula structure Identifier of a formula to store a new formula, omitting terms with too many factors and variates
INCLUDEFUNCTIONS = string token Whether to include functions in the formulae saved by the OUTFORMULA option or the OUTTERMS parameter (yes, no); default no
REORDER = string token When to reorder the terms in the model (always, standard, never); default stan
DROPTERMS = string token Whether to include only terms that can be dropped individually from the formula (yes, no); default no
CHECKFUNCTIONS = scalar Indicator, set to one if the TERMS formula contains any functions, and zero if it contains none
FUNCTIONDEFINITIONS = pointer Saves details of the functions defined for each factor and variate in the TERMS formula
EXCLUDEPSEUDOTERMS = string token Whether to omit pseudo-terms from the number of terms and the formulae saved by the OUTFORMULA option and OUTTERMS parameter (yes, no); default no

Parameters

TERMS = formula Formula from which the classification sets, individual model terms and so on are to be formed
CLASSIFICATION = pointers Identifiers giving a pointer to store the factors and variates composing each model term of the TERMS formula
OUTTERMS = formula structures Identifiers giving a formula to store each individual term of the TERMS formula
MAINTERMS = formula structures Identifiers giving a formula to store the main term for each individual of the TERMS formula

Description

If you are writing procedures, for example for statistical analyses, the model to be fitted will often be specified by a Genstat formula structure. Unless the algorithm within the procedure merely involves straightforward use of one of Genstat’s statistical directives, you may wish to know more about the formula: how many model terms does it contain, which factors do they involve, and so on. The FCLASSIFICATION directive is designed to provide the answers to these questions. The formula is specified using the TERMS parameter.

When Genstat uses a formula in a statistical analysis, it is expanded into a series of model terms, linked by the operator +. FCLASSIFICATION allows you to save this expanded form, in another formula, using the OUTFORMULA option.

You can use the FACTORIAL option to apply a limit to the number of factors and variates in the resulting terms, similarly to the FACTORIAL option in the ANOVA, FIT or REML directives. The number of terms in the formula can be saved (in a scalar) using the NTERMS option, and a list of the factors and variates that occur in the formula can be saved (in a pointer) using the CLASSIFICATION option.

The other parameters allow you to save information about the individual model terms in the formula. The identifiers in the lists that they specify are taken in parallel with the model terms in the expanded form of the formula. For each model term, the corresponding identifier in the list for the CLASSIFICATION parameter is defined as a pointer storing the factors that occur in the term; and the identifier in the OUTTERMS list is defined as a formula containing just that model term.

The MAINTERMS parameter is useful if the formula contains pseudo-factors. Its identifiers save formula structures containing the “main term” for each of the model terms. If the term is a pseudo-term, this will be the model term to which the pseudo-term is linked. Otherwise, it will be the term itself. For example, in the model

Variety//(A+B)

in Example 4.7.3c in the Guide to Genstat, Part 2 Statistics, there are two pseudo-terms, A and B, with Variety as their main term.

You can set option EXCLUDEPSEUDOTERMS=yes to omit pseudo-terms from the saved information (number of terms, OUTFORMULA or OUTTERMS ).

By default any functions such as POL or REG are omitted from the formulae saved by OUTFORMULA or OUTTERMS, but these will be included if you set option INCLUDEFUNCTIONS=yes. The CHECKFUNCTIONS option allows you to save a scalar containing one if the TERMS formula contains any functions, and zero if it does not.

The FUNCTIONDEFINITIONS option allows you to obtain details of the functions. This saves a pointer which contains a pointer for each factor and variate in the formula (in the same order as in the CLASSIFICATION pointer). If the factor or variate has no function, its pointer contains just a text with a single missing value (''). Otherwise the first element of the pointer is a text containing the name of the function (either 'POL', 'POLND', 'REG', 'REGND', 'COMP', 'SSPLINE' or 'LOESS'). It then contains elements to store the second and subsequent arguments of the function (if any).

Model terms involving several factors are regarded by Genstat as representing all the joint effects of these factors that are not removed by earlier terms in the formula. So, in the formula

A + B + A.B

A.B is the interaction of factors A and B, as both main effects occur earlier in the formula. Alternatively, in the formula

A.B + A + B

A.B still represents all the joint effects of factors A and B, and the later terms A and B are redundant as they are now “contained” in A.B. Thus FCLASSIFICATION usually deletes any term in the model that is contained in an earlier term. However, if you set option REORDER=alwaysthe model is reordered after applying any operator (including plus). The reordering arranges the terms so that they contain increasing numbers of identifiers. Terms with the same number of identifiers are then put into lexicographical order with respect to the order in which the identifiers first occurred in the formula itself. Each term will therefore come before any term that would contain it. So the model would again be

A + B + A.B

The default setting, REORDER=standard, applies the standard Genstat rules, which reorder the terms only after a dot, slash or star operator. The final setting REORDER=never specifies that no reordering should take place. (Before Release 19.2, the ORTHOGONAL option had settings no and yes, corresponding to standard and always. Options and parameters with settings yes and no should not have any other settings. So these were renamed in Release 19.2, when the setting never was added. However, no and yes are retained as synonyms, so that earlier programs will still run.)

The rules about terms that contain other terms are also relevant when you are dropping terms from a model, for example in a regression analysis. You cannot drop a term, for example using the DROP directive, until all the terms that contain it have been dropped. To simplify the process, if you set option DROPTERMS=yes, the formulae saved by OUTFORMULA or OUTTERMS will contain only terms that are not contained in any other terms (i.e. only the terms that can be dropped).

 

Options: FACTORIAL, NTERMS, CLASSIFICATION, OUTFORMULA, INCLUDEFUNCTIONS, REORDER, DROPTERMS, CHECKFUNCTIONS, FUNCTIONDEFINITIONS, EXCLUDEPSEUDOTERMS.
Parameters: TERMS, CLASSIFICATION, OUTTERMS, MAINTERMS.

See also

Directives: FORMULA, FARGUMENTS, REFORMULATE, SETCALCULATE, SETRELATE, SET2FORMULA.

Commands for: Calculations and manipulation.

Example

" Example FCLA-1: Examples of the FCLASSIFICATION directive
  FCLASSIFICATION expands a formula and allows the following to be saved:
  1) the expanded version, 
  2) any individual term of the formula,
  3) the sets of variates and factors classifying the individual terms."

FACTOR A,B,C
FORMULA [VALUE=A*B] AstarB
" expand AstarB "
FCLASSIFICATION [OUTFORMULA=Expanded] #AstarB
PRINT AstarB, Expanded
" expand A*B*C imposing a limit of 2 on the number of factors or 
  variates in the resulting terms (default for FACTORIAL is 3) "
FCLASSIFICATION [FACTORIAL=2; OUTFORMULA=Expanded] A*B*C
PRINT Expanded
" calculate the number of terms N in the expanded formula, 
  then save the terms in separate formulae T[1...N] 
  and their classification sets in pointers S[1...N] "
FCLASSIFICATION [FACTORIAL=2; NTERMS=N] A*B*C
& A*B*C; CLASSIFICATION=S[1...N]; OUTTERMS=T[1...N]
FOR Si=S[1...N]; Ti=T[1...N]
PRINT Si,Ti
ENDFOR
Updated on October 28, 2020

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