Ifelse in function returning NaN for negative numbers

user_17570583 0
Viewed 107

I dont understand why this function returns NaN for negative values of x.

lambda <- 2.77 
alpha <- 0.88 

# function 

util <- function( x, a, l){
  
  ifelse(x >=0, x^a, l * (x^a) )
  
}

for x I insert a number from a data frame. If the number is positive, I get the correct result. If it is negative though, it returns NaN


> util(-0.5,alpha,lambda)
[1] NaN

Can someone explain why or suggest a solution?

r
1 Answers

You can try this

util <- function(x, a, l) {
  ifelse(x >= 0, x^a, l * (as.complex(x)^a))
}

and you will see

> util(-0.5, alpha, lambda)
[1] -1.399432+0.554074i
user_121587570
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