[SciPy-Dev] Doc error in scipy.optimize.fmin and missing info in ref guide

[Rob Clewley]

Hi,

In both my old version and the one in the svn trunk there is an
inconsistency in the docstring of scipy.optimize.fmin.

    Other Parameters
    ----------------
    xtol : float
        Relative error in xopt acceptable for convergence.
    ftol : number
        Relative error in func(xopt) acceptable for convergence.

As you see from the following code snippet from the body of the
function, the convergence test is in terms of absolute error for both
x and f, as the sim array contains x values and fsim the function
values.

    if (max(numpy.ravel(abs(sim[1:]-sim[0]))) <= xtol \
                and max(abs(fsim[0]-fsim[1:])) <= ftol):
        break

Also, optional parameters for any optimize functions are not described
in the draft of the Scipy reference manual I came across while
googling this issue. For instance, at

http://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.optimize.fmin.html#scipy.optimize.fmin

fmin does not have the optional arguments detailed. If this is
automatically generated is there a reason why the optional parameters
aren't being shown in this document? I think they should be, IMO.

-Rob