Using jags.parallel from within a function (R language Error in get(name, envir = envir) : object 'y' not found)

Question

Using jags.parallel from the command line or a script works fine. I can run this modified example from http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/R2jags/docs/jags just fine

# An example model file is given in:
  model.file <- system.file(package="R2jags", "model", "schools.txt")
#=================#
# initialization  #
#=================#

  # data
  J <- 8.0
  y <- c(28.4,7.9,-2.8,6.8,-0.6,0.6,18.0,12.2)
  sd <- c(14.9,10.2,16.3,11.0,9.4,11.4,10.4,17.6)

  jags.data <- list("y","sd","J")
  jags.params <- c("mu","sigma","theta")
  jags.inits <- function(){
    list("mu"=rnorm(1),"sigma"=runif(1),"theta"=rnorm(J))
  }


#===============================#
# RUN jags and postprocessing   #
#===============================#
#  jagsfit <- jags(data=jags.data, inits=jags.inits, jags.params, 
#    n.iter=5000, model.file=model.file)

  # Run jags parallely, no progress bar. R may be frozen for a while, 
  # Be patient. Currenlty update afterward does not run parallelly

  print("Running Parallel") 
  jagsfit <- jags.parallel(data=jags.data, inits=jags.inits, jags.params, 
    n.iter=5000, model.file=model.file)

However if I wrap it in a function

testparallel <- functions(out){
# An example model file is given in:
    .
    .
    .
jagsfit <- jags.parallel(data=jags.data, inits=jags.inits, jags.params, 
  n.iter=5000, model.file=model.file)
print(out)
return(jagsfit)
}

Then I get the error: Error in get(name, envir = envir) : object 'y' not found Based on what I found here I know that it is an issue with the environment exported to the cluster and I have fixed it by changing

J <- 8.0
y <- c(28.4,7.9,-2.8,6.8,-0.6,0.6,18.0,12.2)
sd <- c(14.9,10.2,16.3,11.0,9.4,11.4,10.4,17.6)

to

  assign("J",8.0,envir=globalenv()) 
  assign("y",c(28.4,7.9,-2.8,6.8,-0.6,0.6,18.0,12.2),envir=globalenv()) 
  assign("sd",c(14.9,10.2,16.3,11.0,9.4,11.4,10.4,17.6),envir=globalenv()) 

Is there a better way to get around this?

Thank you, Greg

P.S.

I am working on this code for someone else so I don't really want to changes things in the R2jags package to let me pass in the environment to export though I plan on suggesting it to the authors of the package.

Answer 1

So I have contacted the author of R2jags and he has added an addition argument to jags.parallel that lets you pass envir, which is then past onto clusterExport.

This works well except it allows clashes between the name of my data and variables in the jags.parallel function.