How to Output the Objective Function to a Separate File

NONMEM Topic 24

Keywords: Objective function, File

Topic started by: Katya Gibiansky (gibiansky_e@dsmws3.dnet.sandoz.com) - 28 Sep 1994

I need to output the value of the objective function to a separate 
file. Does anyone know how to do this in NONMEM ?
I'd be grateful for suggestions.

Response from: Alison Boeckmann (alison@c255.ucsf.edu) - 28 Sep 1994

There are a number of ways to capture the minimum value of the objective
function (and other NONMEM computed quantities).

Its best if users communicate directly with the NONMEM consultant
on this topic, because it requires knowlege of NONMEM internals.

I'll reply directly to Katya.

If anyone else would like to do something similar, please send
e-mail to nmconsult@c255.ucsf.edu

Response from: Nick Holford (n.holford@auckland.ac.nz) - 29 Sep 1994

Here is an answer that is easy to use on a system that supports awk and
grep (all unix and versions are available for DOS and other OSs).

If you want to capture the obj func value at the end of each iteration
you can extract it from the NONMEM listing as it produced. 

I use grep to search the NONMEM output as
follows:

   grep "OBJECTIVE VALUE" nonmem.lst

You could use awk to extract the obj value itself from each line.

   grep "OBJECTIVE VALUE" nonmem.lst|awk '{print $6}'

As supplied NONMEM leaves the OS to flush the output file buffer when it
feels like it instead of after printing the results of each iteration.
If you want to have a continuously updated output file while NONMEM is
running then you need to flush the file buffer.
If your f77 compiler supports flush() or something like that then it easy to
make the change to the NONMEM source so that the output file buffer is
flushed as soon as a new obj value is printed. I can supply details if
you wish.

End of Topic - 13 Jan 95