One warning message you may encounter in R is:
Warning message: In min(data) : no non-missing arguments to min; returning Inf
This warning message appears whenever you attempt to find the minimum or maximum value of a vector that has a length of zero.
It’s important to note that this is only a warning message and it won’t actually prevent your code from running.
However, you can use one of the following methods to avoid this warning message entirely:
Method 1: Suppress the Warning Message
suppressWarnings(min(data))
Method 2: Define a Custom Function to Calculate the Min or Max
#define custom function to calculate min custom_min function(x) {if (length(x)>0) min(x) else Inf} #use custom function to calculate min of data custom_min(data)
The following examples show how to use each method in practice.
Method 1: Suppress the Warning Message
Suppose we attempt to use the min() function to find the minimum value of a vector with a length of zero:
#define vector with no values
data #attempt to find min value of vector
min(data)
[1] Inf
Warning message:
In min(data) : no non-missing arguments to min; returning Inf
Notice that we receive a warning message that tells us we attempted to find the minimum value of a vector with no non-missing arguments.
To avoid this warning message, we can use the suppressWarnings() function:
#define vector with no values
data #find minimum value of vector
suppressWarnings(min(data))
[1] Inf
The minimum value is still calculated to be “Inf” but we receive no warning message this time.
Method 2: Define a Custom Function
Another way to avoid the warning message is to define a custom function that only calculates the minimum value if the length of a vector is greater than zero, otherwise a value of “Inf” is returned:
#define vector with no values data #define custom function to calculate min custom_min function(x) {if (length(x)>0) min(x) else Inf} #use custom function to calculate min custom_min(data) [1] Inf
Notice that the minimum value is calculated to be “Inf” and we receive no warning message.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials explain how to troubleshoot other common errors in R:
How to Fix in R: dim(X) must have a positive length
How to Fix in R: names do not match previous names
How to Fix in R: longer object length is not a multiple of shorter object length
How to Fix in R: contrasts can be applied only to factors with 2 or more levels