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wrkdirs::usr:....0::man::lmmin(3) lmfit manual wrkdirs::usr:....0::man::lmmin(3) NAME lmmin - Levenberg-Marquardt least-squares minimization (simple/legacy API without error estimates) SYNOPSIS #include <lmmin.h> void lmmin( const int n_par, double *par, const int m_dat, const void *y, const void *data, void *evaluate( const double *par, const int m_dat, const void *data, double *fvec, int *userbreak), const lm_control_struct *control, lm_status_struct *status ); extern const lm_control_struct lm_control_double; extern const lm_control_struct lm_control_float; extern const char *lm_infmsg[]; extern const char *lm_shortmsg[]; DESCRIPTION lmmin() determines a vector par that minimizes the sum of squared elements of fvec-y. The vector fvec is computed by a user-supplied function evalu- ate(); the vector y contains user-provided values. On success, par repre- sents a local minimum, not necessarily a global one; it may depend on its starting value. This is a simple wrapper of the function lmmin2(3), which also returns er- ror estimates. Conversely, the function lmcurve(3) provides an even sim- pler wrapper, for use in curve fitting. The Levenberg-Marquardt minimization starts with a steepest-descent explo- ration of the parameter space, and achieves rapid convergence by crossing over into the Newton-Gauss method. Function arguments: n_par Number of free variables. Length of parameter vector par. par Parameter vector. On input, it must contain a reasonable guess. On output, it contains the solution found to minimize ||fvec||. m_dat Length of vector fvec. Must statisfy n_par <= m_dat. y Input vector of length m_dat. May also be the null pointer; in this case, lmmin() minimizes the squared sum of fvec instead of fvec-y. dataThis pointer is ignored by the fit algorithm, except for appearing as an argument in all calls to the user-supplied routine evaluate. evaluate Pointer to a user-supplied function that computes m_dat elements of vector fvec for a given parameter vector par. If evaluate return with *userbreak set to a negative value, lmmin() will interrupt the fitting and terminate. control Parameter collection for tuning the fit procedure. In most cases, the default &lm_control_double is adequate. If f is only computed with single-precision accuracy, &lm_control_float should be used. See also below, NOTES on initializing parameter records. control has the following members (for more details, see the source file lmstruct.h): double control.ftol Relative error desired in the sum of squares. Recommended setting: somewhat above machine precision; less if fvec is computed with re- duced accuracy. double control.xtol Relative error between last two approximations. Recommended set- ting: as ftol. double control.gtol A measure for degeneracy. Recommended setting: as ftol. double control.epsilon Step used to calculate the Jacobian. Recommended setting: as ftol, but definitely less than the accuracy of fvec. double control.stepbound Initial bound to steps in the outer loop, generally between 0.01 and 100; recommended value is 100. int control.patience Used to set the maximum number of function evaluations to pa- tience*n_par. int control.scale_diag Logical switch (0 or 1). If 1, then scale parameters to their ini- tial value. This is the recommended setting. FILE* control.msgfile Progress messages will be written to this file. Typically stdout or stderr. The value NULL will be interpreted as stdout. int control.verbosity If nonzero, some progress information from within the LM algorithm is written to control.stream. int control.n_maxpri -1, or maximum number of parameters to print. int control.m_maxpri -1, or maximum number of residuals to print. status A record used to return information about the minimization process: double status.fnorm Norm of the vector fvec; int status.nfev Actual number of iterations; int status.outcome Status of minimization; for the corresponding text message, print lm_infmsg[status.outcome]; for a short code, print lm_shortmsg[sta- tus.outcome]. int status.userbreak Set when termination has been forced by the user-supplied routine evaluate. NOTES Initializing parameter records. The parameter record control should always be initialized from supplied de- fault records: lm_control_struct control = lm_control_double; /* or _float */ After this, parameters may be overwritten: control.patience = 500; /* allow more iterations */ control.verbosity = 15; /* for verbose monitoring */ An application written this way is guaranteed to work even if new parame- ters are added to lm_control_struct. Conversely, addition of parameters is not considered an API change; it may happen without increment of the major version number. EXAMPLES Fitting a surface Fit a data set y(t) by a function f(t;p) where t is a two-dimensional vec- tor: #include "lmmin.h" #include <stdio.h> /* fit model: a plane p0 + p1*tx + p2*tz */ double f( double tx, double tz, const double *p ) { return p[0] + p[1]*tx + p[2]*tz; } /* data structure to transmit data arays and fit model */ typedef struct { double *tx, *tz; double *y; double (*f)( double tx, double tz, const double *p ); } data_struct; /* function evaluation, determination of residues */ void evaluate_surface( const double *par, int m_dat, const void *data, double *fvec, int *userbreak ) { /* for readability, explicit type conversion */ data_struct *D; D = (data_struct*)data; int i; for ( i = 0; i < m_dat; i++ ) fvec[i] = D->y[i] - D->f( D->tx[i], D->tz[i], par ); } int main() { /* parameter vector */ int n_par = 3; /* number of parameters in model function f */ double par[3] = { -1, 0, 1 }; /* arbitrary starting value */ /* data points */ int m_dat = 4; double tx[4] = { -1, -1, 1, 1 }; double tz[4] = { -1, 1, -1, 1 }; double y[4] = { 0, 1, 1, 2 }; data_struct data = { tx, tz, y, f }; /* auxiliary parameters */ lm_status_struct status; lm_control_struct control = lm_control_double; control.verbosity = 3; /* perform the fit */ printf( "Fitting:\n" ); lmmin( n_par, par, m_dat, (const void*) &data, evaluate_surface, &control, &status ); /* print results */ printf( "\nResults:\n" ); printf( "status after %d function evaluations:\n %s\n", status.nfev, lm_infmsg[status.outcome] ); printf("obtained parameters:\n"); int i; for ( i=0; i<n_par; ++i ) printf(" par[%i] = %12g\n", i, par[i]); printf("obtained norm:\n %12g\n", status.fnorm ); printf("fitting data as follows:\n"); double ff; for ( i=0; i<m_dat; ++i ){ ff = f(tx[i], tz[i], par); printf( " t[%2d]=%12g,%12g y=%12g fit=%12g residue=%12g\n", i, tx[i], tz[i], y[i], ff, y[i] - ff ); } return 0; } More examples For more examples, see the homepage and directories demo/ and test/ in the source distribution. COPYING Copyright (C): 1980-1999 University of Chicago 2004-2018 Joachim Wuttke, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH Software: FreeBSD License Documentation: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike SEE ALSO lmmin2(3), lmcurve(3) Homepage: https://jugit.fz-juelich.de/mlz/lmfit BUGS Please send bug reports and suggestions to the author <j.wut- tke@fz-juelich.de>. perl v5.42.2 2025-09-17 wrkdirs::usr:....0::man::lmmin(3)
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