R help - Feb 2006 - mcmcsamp shortening variable names; how can i turn this feature off?

I have written a function called mcsamp() that is a wrapper that runs 
mcmcsamp() and automatically monitors convergence and structures the 
inferences into vectors and arrays as appropriate.

But I have run into a very little problem, which is that mcmcsamp() 
shortens the variable names.  For example:

 > set.seed (1)
 > group <- rep (1:5,10)
 > a <- rnorm (5,-3,3)
 > y <- rnorm (50, a[group], 2)
 > fit <- lmer (y ~ 1 + (1 | group))
 > mcmcsamp(fit)
     (Intercept) log(sigma^2) log(grop.(In))
[1,]   -2.771979    0.6909418       1.750876
attr(,"mcpar")
[1] 1 1 1
attr(,"class")
[1] "mcmc"


I want "grop" in the above output to be "group", and I want
"(In)" to be
"(Intercept)".  For my purposes (fitting models in general settings)
it
is important to have descriptive variable names, and I gain nothing by 
restricting names to 14 characters.

Is there a way to turn this feature off?
Thanks.

-- 
Andrew Gelman
Professor, Department of Statistics
Professor, Department of Political Science
gelman at stat.columbia.edu
www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman

Statistics department office:
  Social Work Bldg (Amsterdam Ave at 122 St), Room 1016
  212-851-2142
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Mailing address:
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Andrew Gelman <gelman at stat.columbia.edu> writes:
> I have written a function called mcsamp() that is a wrapper that runs 
> mcmcsamp() and automatically monitors convergence and structures the 
> inferences into vectors and arrays as appropriate.
> 
> But I have run into a very little problem, which is that mcmcsamp() 
> shortens the variable names.  For example:
> 
>  > set.seed (1)
>  > group <- rep (1:5,10)
>  > a <- rnorm (5,-3,3)
>  > y <- rnorm (50, a[group], 2)
>  > fit <- lmer (y ~ 1 + (1 | group))
>  > mcmcsamp(fit)
>      (Intercept) log(sigma^2) log(grop.(In))
> [1,]   -2.771979    0.6909418       1.750876
> attr(,"mcpar")
> [1] 1 1 1
> attr(,"class")
> [1] "mcmc"
> 
> 
> I want "grop" in the above output to be "group", and I
want "(In)" to be
> "(Intercept)".  For my purposes (fitting models in general
settings) it
> is important to have descriptive variable names, and I gain nothing by 
> restricting names to 14 characters.
> 
> Is there a way to turn this feature off?
> Thanks.
Looks like they've been run through abbreviate() (which I thought
would be called abbr(), but apparently not...)
> abbreviate("Peter Dalgaard",5)
Peter Dalgaard
       "PtrDl"

Unfortunately, the 2 parts have been abbreviated separately, so the
long names are lost (in fact never generated). I suppose that it could
be possible to hack Matrix:::abbrvNms so that a long version is
returned in names(colnames(mcmc.out)). You have the sources...

Given how close even atanh(Sbj.(I).Dys) is to filling up the label
field of a Trellis plot, I must say that I think there is a case for
abbreviating. Those names easily get *very* long.


-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             ??ster Farimagsgade 5, Entr.B
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     PO Box 2099, 1014 Cph. K
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark          Ph:  (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)                  FAX: (+45) 35327907