Document more objective parameters in R package (#5682)

R-package/R/xgb.cv.R

@@ -2,12 +2,15 @@
 #'
 #' The cross validation function of xgboost
 #'
-#' @param params the list of parameters. Commonly used ones are:
+#' @param params the list of parameters. The complete list of parameters is 
+#'   available in the \href{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}{online documentation}. Below
+#'   is a shorter summary:
 #' \itemize{
 #'   \item \code{objective} objective function, common ones are
 #'   \itemize{
-#'     \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss
-#'     \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for classification
+#'     \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss.
+#'     \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for classification.
+#'     \item See \code{\link[=xgb.train]{xgb.train}()} for complete list of objectives.
 #'   }
 #'   \item \code{eta} step size of each boosting step
 #'   \item \code{max_depth} maximum depth of the tree

R-package/R/xgb.train.R

@@ -3,9 +3,9 @@
 #' \code{xgb.train} is an advanced interface for training an xgboost model.
 #' The \code{xgboost} function is a simpler wrapper for \code{xgb.train}.
 #'
-#' @param params the list of parameters.
-#'        The complete list of parameters is available at \url{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}.
-#'        Below is a shorter summary:
+#' @param params the list of parameters. The complete list of parameters is 
+#'   available in the \href{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}{online documentation}. Below
+#'   is a shorter summary:
 #'
 #' 1. General Parameters
 #'
@@ -43,13 +43,23 @@
 #' \item \code{objective} specify the learning task and the corresponding learning objective, users can pass a self-defined function to it. The default objective options are below:
 #'   \itemize{
 #'     \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss (Default).
+#'     \item \code{reg:squaredlogerror}: regression with squared log loss \eqn{1/2 * (log(pred + 1) - log(label + 1))^2}. All inputs are required to be greater than -1. Also, see metric rmsle for possible issue with this objective.
 #'     \item \code{reg:logistic} logistic regression.
+#'     \item \code{reg:pseudohubererror}: regression with Pseudo Huber loss, a twice differentiable alternative to absolute loss.
 #'     \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for binary classification. Output probability.
 #'     \item \code{binary:logitraw} logistic regression for binary classification, output score before logistic transformation.
-#'     \item \code{num_class} set the number of classes. To use only with multiclass objectives.
+#'     \item \code{binary:hinge}: hinge loss for binary classification. This makes predictions of 0 or 1, rather than producing probabilities.
+#'     \item \code{count:poisson}: poisson regression for count data, output mean of poisson distribution. \code{max_delta_step} is set to 0.7 by default in poisson regression (used to safeguard optimization).
+#'     \item \code{survival:cox}: Cox regression for right censored survival time data (negative values are considered right censored). Note that predictions are returned on the hazard ratio scale (i.e., as HR = exp(marginal_prediction) in the proportional hazard function \code{h(t) = h0(t) * HR)}.
+#'     \item \code{survival:aft}: Accelerated failure time model for censored survival time data. See \href{https://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/aft_survival_analysis.html}{Survival Analysis with Accelerated Failure Time} for details.
+#'     \item \code{aft_loss_distribution}: Probabilty Density Function used by \code{survival:aft} and \code{aft-nloglik} metric.
 #'     \item \code{multi:softmax} set xgboost to do multiclass classification using the softmax objective. Class is represented by a number and should be from 0 to \code{num_class - 1}.
 #'     \item \code{multi:softprob} same as softmax, but prediction outputs a vector of ndata * nclass elements, which can be further reshaped to ndata, nclass matrix. The result contains predicted probabilities of each data point belonging to each class.
 #'     \item \code{rank:pairwise} set xgboost to do ranking task by minimizing the pairwise loss.
+#'     \item \code{rank:ndcg}: Use LambdaMART to perform list-wise ranking where \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounted_cumulative_gain}{Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG)} is maximized.
+#'     \item \code{rank:map}: Use LambdaMART to perform list-wise ranking where \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluation_measures_(information_retrieval)#Mean_average_precision}{Mean Average Precision (MAP)} is maximized.
+#'     \item \code{reg:gamma}: gamma regression with log-link. Output is a mean of gamma distribution. It might be useful, e.g., for modeling insurance claims severity, or for any outcome that might be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution#Applications}{gamma-distributed}.
+#'     \item \code{reg:tweedie}: Tweedie regression with log-link. It might be useful, e.g., for modeling total loss in insurance, or for any outcome that might be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweedie_distribution#Applications}{Tweedie-distributed}.
 #'   }
 #'   \item \code{base_score} the initial prediction score of all instances, global bias. Default: 0.5
 #'   \item \code{eval_metric} evaluation metrics for validation data. Users can pass a self-defined function to it. Default: metric will be assigned according to objective(rmse for regression, and error for classification, mean average precision for ranking). List is provided in detail section.

R-package/man/xgb.cv.Rd

@@ -28,12 +28,15 @@ xgb.cv(
 )
 }
 \arguments{
-\item{params}{the list of parameters. Commonly used ones are:
+\item{params}{the list of parameters. The complete list of parameters is 
+  available in the \href{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}{online documentation}. Below
+  is a shorter summary:
 \itemize{
   \item \code{objective} objective function, common ones are
   \itemize{
-    \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss
-    \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for classification
+    \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss.
+    \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for classification.
+    \item See \code{\link[=xgb.train]{xgb.train}()} for complete list of objectives.
   }
   \item \code{eta} step size of each boosting step
   \item \code{max_depth} maximum depth of the tree

R-package/man/xgb.train.Rd

@@ -42,9 +42,9 @@ xgboost(
 )
 }
 \arguments{
-\item{params}{the list of parameters.
-       The complete list of parameters is available at \url{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}.
-       Below is a shorter summary:
+\item{params}{the list of parameters. The complete list of parameters is 
+  available in the \href{http://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/parameter.html}{online documentation}. Below
+  is a shorter summary:
 
 1. General Parameters
 
@@ -82,13 +82,23 @@ xgboost(
 \item \code{objective} specify the learning task and the corresponding learning objective, users can pass a self-defined function to it. The default objective options are below:
   \itemize{
     \item \code{reg:squarederror} Regression with squared loss (Default).
+    \item \code{reg:squaredlogerror}: regression with squared log loss \eqn{1/2 * (log(pred + 1) - log(label + 1))^2}. All inputs are required to be greater than -1. Also, see metric rmsle for possible issue with this objective.
     \item \code{reg:logistic} logistic regression.
+    \item \code{reg:pseudohubererror}: regression with Pseudo Huber loss, a twice differentiable alternative to absolute loss.
     \item \code{binary:logistic} logistic regression for binary classification. Output probability.
     \item \code{binary:logitraw} logistic regression for binary classification, output score before logistic transformation.
-    \item \code{num_class} set the number of classes. To use only with multiclass objectives.
+    \item \code{binary:hinge}: hinge loss for binary classification. This makes predictions of 0 or 1, rather than producing probabilities.
+    \item \code{count:poisson}: poisson regression for count data, output mean of poisson distribution. \code{max_delta_step} is set to 0.7 by default in poisson regression (used to safeguard optimization).
+    \item \code{survival:cox}: Cox regression for right censored survival time data (negative values are considered right censored). Note that predictions are returned on the hazard ratio scale (i.e., as HR = exp(marginal_prediction) in the proportional hazard function \code{h(t) = h0(t) * HR)}.
+    \item \code{survival:aft}: Accelerated failure time model for censored survival time data. See \href{https://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/aft_survival_analysis.html}{Survival Analysis with Accelerated Failure Time} for details.
+    \item \code{aft_loss_distribution}: Probabilty Density Function used by \code{survival:aft} and \code{aft-nloglik} metric.
     \item \code{multi:softmax} set xgboost to do multiclass classification using the softmax objective. Class is represented by a number and should be from 0 to \code{num_class - 1}.
     \item \code{multi:softprob} same as softmax, but prediction outputs a vector of ndata * nclass elements, which can be further reshaped to ndata, nclass matrix. The result contains predicted probabilities of each data point belonging to each class.
     \item \code{rank:pairwise} set xgboost to do ranking task by minimizing the pairwise loss.
+    \item \code{rank:ndcg}: Use LambdaMART to perform list-wise ranking where \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discounted_cumulative_gain}{Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG)} is maximized.
+    \item \code{rank:map}: Use LambdaMART to perform list-wise ranking where \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaluation_measures_(information_retrieval)#Mean_average_precision}{Mean Average Precision (MAP)} is maximized.
+    \item \code{reg:gamma}: gamma regression with log-link. Output is a mean of gamma distribution. It might be useful, e.g., for modeling insurance claims severity, or for any outcome that might be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution#Applications}{gamma-distributed}.
+    \item \code{reg:tweedie}: Tweedie regression with log-link. It might be useful, e.g., for modeling total loss in insurance, or for any outcome that might be \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweedie_distribution#Applications}{Tweedie-distributed}.
   }
   \item \code{base_score} the initial prediction score of all instances, global bias. Default: 0.5
   \item \code{eval_metric} evaluation metrics for validation data. Users can pass a self-defined function to it. Default: metric will be assigned according to objective(rmse for regression, and error for classification, mean average precision for ranking). List is provided in detail section.