Suppress the remaining messages in cmdstan_model() if quiet is TRUE?

[wlandau]

I think it would be convenient if "Compiling Stan program..." and "Model executable is up to date!" were suppressed when quiet is TRUE.

library(cmdstanr)
#> This is cmdstanr version 0.2.2
#> - Online documentation and vignettes at mc-stan.org/cmdstanr
#> - CmdStan path set to: /Users/<CENSORED>/.cmdstanr/cmdstan-2.25.0
#> - Use set_cmdstan_path() to change the path
stan_program <- "
data {
  int<lower=0> N;
  int<lower=0,upper=1> y[N];
}
parameters {
  real<lower=0,upper=1> theta;
}
model {
  y ~ bernoulli(theta);
}
"
file <- write_stan_file(stan_program)

model <- cmdstan_model(file, quiet = TRUE)
#> Compiling Stan program...

model <- cmdstan_model(file, quiet = TRUE)
#> Model executable is up to date!

^{Created on 2021-01-06 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

[rok-cesnovar]

Thanks!

I think we want to have 3 levels of output:

• no output (what you propose)
• print informational messages (what we currently print with quiet = TRUE)
• print all compile messages (what we currently print with quiet = FALSE)

I am not sure what would be the best way of adding the "no output" option. A new argument or some third value to quiet, like quiet = "really quiet" :)

[wlandau]

After more thought...what about a custom path to a log file? log = R.utils::nullfile() could be equivalent to totally quiet, and a text log would be super convenient for models that take days to run. I currently do this in stantargets: https://wlandau.github.io/stantargets/reference/tar_stan_mcmc.html#arguments.

[wlandau]

I know R CMD BATCH has a log of its own, but sometimes stdout does not come through, e.g. in HPC settings where it can be difficult or annoying to relay the output.

[mike-lawrence]

@wlandau See this feature discussion, the proposed implementation of which would involve stdout/stderr files, which should address the persistent verbosity of cmdstan.

[dpsimpson]

A different solution that might be useful regardless of the new features would be to only print out those messages when interactive() == TRUE. This would fix the problem for RMarkdown docs.

[rok-cesnovar]

Oh, good point.

Will make a PR for that prior to what we agree on for the features. Rmd displaying messages from cmdstanr has annoyed me to no end. Didnt think of interactive...

[wlandau]

Noticed it has been a while. I can write the PR for if (interactive()) if you would like. May I?

[rok-cesnovar]

Of course! Sorry, it was a bit busy the last month. Thank you!

[wlandau]

Thanks!

I forgot I need to go through a couple pre-approvals at my work before I start submitting PRs to cmdstanr. Hopefully that will go through this week.