R Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument (2 Examples)
In this post you’ll learn how to handle the “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument” in the R programming language.
The article will contain two examples for the handling of the “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument”. To be more specific, the content is structured as follows:
Let’s dive into it!
Example 1: Reproduce the Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument
Example 1 explains how to replicate the “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument” in the R programming language.
Have a look at the following application of the rep function:
rep("a", - 5) # Application of rep doesn't work # Error in rep("a", -5) : invalid 'times' argument
As you can see, the previous R code has returned the error message “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument”.
The reason for this error is that we have tried to use a negative times value (i.e. – 5).
Let’s fix this problem!
Example 2: Fix the Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument
The following code demonstrates how to debug the “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument”.
For this, we have to assign a positive value to the times argument:
rep("a", 5) # Properly apply rep function # [1] "a" "a" "a" "a" "a"
The previous R code has worked fine and has not returned any error messages.
Video & Further Resources
Do you need more explanations on the R syntax of the present tutorial? Then you may have a look at the following video on my YouTube channel. In the video, I’m explaining the contents of this tutorial:
The YouTube video will be added soon.
Besides the video, you might have a look at some of the related R programming posts on this website:
- Error in Function: Unused Argument in R
- How to Fix the R Error in stripchart.default(x1, …) : invalid plotting method
- Error in .subset(x, j) : invalid subscript type ‘list’
- Error in file(file, “rt”) : invalid ‘description’ argument (read.table & csv)
- Solving Warnings & Errors in R (List with Examples)
- R Programming Tutorials
Summary: This article has shown how to properly replicate a value and how to avoid the “Error in rep(X) : invalid ‘times’ argument” in the R programming language. Let me know in the comments below, if you have further questions.
I’m Joachim Schork. On this website, I provide statistics tutorials as well as code in Python and R programming.
2 Comments. Leave new
When I run this code, it shows the error on the console.
model <- forecast:::forecast.HoltWinters(mod, h=(length(data) – length(dataTrain)))
Error in rep(as.vector(object$coefficients[1L]), n.ahead) :
invalid 'times' argument
Also,…
Another code that I run does not work as well.
comp <- cbind(dataTest,fc)
Error in .cbind.ts(list(…), .makeNamesTs(…), dframe = FALSE, union = TRUE) :
non-time series not of the correct length
This is all the codes that I try to use for HoltWinters Forecast
library(tidyverse)
library(googleAuthR)
library(googleAnalyticsR)
library(forecast)
library(reshape2)
library(scales)
library(dplyr)
library(reprex)
ga_auth()
ga_account_list()
metadata <- ga_meta(version = "universal", propertyId = 235022546)
ga_id <- 235022546
BaNANA_gadata2 <- google_analytics_3(id = ga_id,
start = "2021-05-15",
end = "2022-04-30",
metrics = "ga:organicSearches",
dimensions = "ga:date")
plot(BaNANA_gadata2)
BaNANA_gadata2
data <- BaNANA_gadata2
data.ts <- as.ts(data)
data.ts
plot(data.ts, type = 'b', col = "blue", main = colnames(data.ts))
#Training and Test Split
split <- ceiling(0.7 * length(data))
dataTrain <- ts(data[1:split], frequency = 15, start = c(2021,5))
dataTest <- ts(data[c((split+1) : nrow(data)),], frequency = 15, start = c(2022,5))
actual <- unclass(dataTrain)
actualFull <- unclass(data)
forecastGen <- function(metd){
if(metd == "HoltWinters"){
method <- "HoltWinters {stats}"
mod <- HoltWinters(dataTrain, optim.start = c(alpha = 0.99, beta = 0.001, gamma = 0.001))
model <- forecast:::forecast.HoltWinters(mod, h=(length(data) – length(dataTrain)))
actualFull <- actualFull[16:length(actualFull)]
actual <- actual[16:length(actual)]
i = 4
}
if(metd == "hw"){
method <- "hw {forecast}"
model <- hw(dataTrain, initial = "optimal", h=(length(data) – length(dataTrain)))
i = 2
}
filename <- paste(method, ".png", sep = "")
fit <- as.data.frame(model$fitted)[,1] # Fitted Values
fitV <- unclass(fit)
fc <- unlist(model[i])
names(fc) <- NULL
fitForecast <- (c(fit,fc))
comp <- cbind(dataTest,fc)
compFull <- cbind(actualFull, fitForecast)
cat("Accuracy of Model:", metd,"\n")
print(accuracy(model))
mape <- round(mean(abs((comp[,2]-comp[,1])/comp[,1]))*100,2)
cat("\n", paste("MAPE of Predictions =", mape), "\n\n")
upper <- c(actual,model$upper[,1])
lower <- c(actual,model$lower[,1])
#Plot and Save
png(file = filename,width = 900,height = 550)
plot(actualFull, type = 'l', col = 'black', lwd = 2.5, main = method,
ylab = colnames(data.ts), xlab = "Time Intervals", ylim = c(min(lower),max(upper)))
grid()
lines(fitForecast, type = 'l', col = 'red', lwd = 2)
lines(fitV, type = 'l', col = 'blue', lwd = 3)
lines(upper, col = "orange", lwd = 0.5)
lines(lower, col = "orange", lwd = 0.5)
legend("bottomright", inset = .01, c("Actual","Fitted","Predicted"),
fill = c(1,4,2), horiz = TRUE, cex = 0.75)
}
# call the functions on HoltWinters() ad hw ()
forecastGen(metd = "HoltWinters")
forecastGen(metd = "hw")
Hey Palin,
What is returned to the console when you run the following code?
Regards,
Joachim