quad_qag(...) error message



Robert Dodier wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 2:40 PM, Edwin Woollett <woollett at charter.net> wrote:
> 
>> I get quad_qag(..) error message no. 2
>>  ("excessive roundoff error") with
>>  a very simple function f(x) = x.
> 
> The exact result is 0 which makes the relative error calculation undefined.
> (I don't remember quadpack's definition of relative error offhand.)

I looked it up.  Quadpack computes

errbnd = max(epsabs, epsrel*abs(result))

This is used to determine if we've converged or not.  But since result
is always 0, errbnd is always 0 (because epsabs is 0).  This is compared
to the estimated abserr to determine convergence.

Ray