Unknown variable error in JAGS model

Question

I'm currently trying to develop a model in JAGS, but I unfortunately keep getting the following error:

Error in jags.model(file = "Model.txt", n.adapt = MCMCAdapt) : 
RUNTIME ERROR:
Compilation error on line 15.
Unknown variable precedentCount
Either supply values for this variable with the data
or define it  on the left hand side of a relation.

The following is what is in the file titled, "Model.txt":

model {
for (i in 1:citationCount) {

    Z[i] ~ dbern(Z.hat[i])
    Z.hat[i] <- phi(kappa - lambda*pow(x.precedent[newPrecedentID[i]] - x.brief[newBriefID[i]], 2))

}

for (j in 1:briefCount) {

    x.brief[newBriefID[j]] ~ dnorm(0,1)

}

for (k in 1:precedentCount) {

    x.precedent[newPrecedentID[k]] ~ dnorm(0,1)

}

kappa ~ dunif(-10,10)
lambda ~ dunif(-10, 0)

}

I'm a little confused as to why the error is occurring, as precedentCount is already defined in R's environment:

> precedentCount
[1] 650

The same thing is true for briefCount and citationCount, yet these have not yielded the same error (yet, at least):

> briefCount
[1] 126
> citationCount
[1] 2948

If anyone can advise how I can address this problem, I would greatly appreciate it.

Answer 1

You need to give JAGS all data as the argument jags.model(data = list(...)). precedentCount came up because it was just the first error.

data_list <- list(precedentCount = 650, 
                  briefCount = 126, 
                  citationCount = 2948,
                  newPrecedentID = ...))

jags.model(file = "Model.txt", n.adapt = MCMCAdapt, data = data_list)