# DifferentailEquations.jl error on multiple\_shooting\_objective

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/differentailequations-jl-error-on-multiple-shooting-objective/22387>\
**Category:** Numerics\
**Tags:** diffeq\
**Created:** [March 27, 2019, 3:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/differentailequations-jl-error-on-multiple-shooting-objective/22387 "2019-03-27T03:25:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andre\_Mello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/andre_mello/32/7333_2.png) [@Andre\_Mello](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Andre_Mello)\
**Post date:** [March 27, 2019, 3:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/differentailequations-jl-error-on-multiple-shooting-objective/22387/1 "2019-03-27T03:25:10Z")

</div>

I’m still exploring the excellent `DifferentialEquations.jl` and came across this error today.  
I wanted to compare the different objective functions created by `two_stage_method`, `build_loss_objective` and `multiple_shooting_objective`.

```julia
using DifferentialEquations
using DiffEqParamEstim

function floudas_one(dz_dt, z, phi, t)
    r_1 = phi[1]*z[1]
    r_2 = phi[2]*z[2]

    dz_dt[1] = -r_1
    dz_dt[2] = r_1 - r_2
end

phi = [5.0035 1.0]
data = [1.0 0.57353 0.328937 0.188654 0.108198 0.0620545 0.0355906 0.0204132 0.011708 0.00671499;
        0.0 0.401566 0.589647 0.659731 0.666112 0.639512 0.597179 0.54867 0.499168 0.451377]
t = [0.0, 0.111111, 0.222222, 0.333333, 0.444444, 0.555556, 0.666667, 0.777778, 0.888889, 1.0]

ode_fun = floudas_one

t_span = (t[1], t[end])
de_prob = ODEProblem(ode_fun,data[:,1],t_span)
obj_ts = two_stage_method(de_prob,t,data)
obj_ss = build_loss_objective(de_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))
obj_ms = multiple_shooting_objective(de_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))

println(obj_ts(phi))
println(obj_ss(phi))
println(obj_ms(phi))

```

Calling `obj_ts` and `obj_ss` give me the expected results. However `obj_ms` returns:

```julia
MethodError: no method matching length(::Nothing)
Closest candidates are:
  length(!Matched::Core.SimpleVector) at essentials.jl:561
  length(!Matched::Base.MethodList) at reflection.jl:801
  length(!Matched::Core.MethodTable) at reflection.jl:875
  ...
in top-level scope at base/none
in at DiffEqParamEstim/mNjO8/src/build_loss_objective.jl:24
in at DiffEqParamEstim/mNjO8/src/multiple_shooting_objective.jl:33

```

Any guidance would be appreciated.

* * *

So shortly after writing this I figured I left the parameter `p` out of the constructor. I thought I should give it a try.

```julia
p0 = [0.1 0.1]
t_span = (t[1], t[end])
de_prob = ODEProblem(ode_fun,data[:,1],t_span,p0)
obj_ts = two_stage_method(de_prob,t,data)
obj_ss = build_loss_objective(de_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))
obj_ms = multiple_shooting_objective(de_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))

```

Now `obj_ms` returns:

```julia
InexactError: Int64(Inf)
in top-level scope at base/none
in at DiffEqParamEstim/mNjO8/src/build_loss_objective.jl:24
in at DiffEqParamEstim/mNjO8/src/multiple_shooting_objective.jl:34
in Type at base/float.jl:703 

```

So I decided to formulate my original ODE as a BVP, just in case `multiple_shooting_objective` is only fit to receive a `BVProblem` and not a `ODEProblem`.

```julia
function bc1(residual, u)
    residual[1] = u[end÷2][1] - data[1,end÷2]
    residual[2] = u[end][1] - data[1,end]
    residual[3] = u[end÷2][2] - data[2,end÷2]
    residual[4] = u[end][2] - data[2,end]
end

p0 = [0.1 0.1]
t_span = (t[1], t[end])
de_prob = ODEProblem(ode_fun,data[:,1],t_span,p0)
obj_ts = two_stage_method(de_prob,t,data)
obj_ss = build_loss_objective(de_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))
bv_prob = BVProblem(ode_fun, bc1, data[:,1], t_span, p0)
obj_ms = multiple_shooting_objective(bv_prob,Tsit5(),L2Loss(t,data))

```

But I still get the same error as above.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Vaibhavdixit02](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vaibhavdixit02/32/2916_2.png) [@Vaibhavdixit02](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Vaibhavdixit02)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/differentailequations-jl-error-on-multiple-shooting-objective/22387/2 "2019-03-28T18:42:53Z")

</div>

Hi, the parameters that the cost function in multiple shooting objective takes is different from the parameters of the ODE, you need to pass the intermediate starting points as well with the parameters of the ODE. Take a look at the examples here [http://docs.juliadiffeq.org/latest/analysis/parameter\_estimation.html#Optimization-Based-ODE-Inference-Examples-1](http://docs.juliadiffeq.org/latest/analysis/parameter_estimation.html#Optimization-Based-ODE-Inference-Examples-1), so to get the value you would have to pass something like `p0 = [1.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.1,0.1]`. I hope this is clear? Take a look at [DiffEqDocs.jl/parameter\_estimation.md at master · SciML/DiffEqDocs.jl · GitHub](https://github.com/JuliaDiffEq/DiffEqDocs.jl/blob/master/docs/src/analysis/parameter_estimation.md#multiple-shooting-objective) to understand what the multiple shooting method is trying to do, that would make it clearer.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Andre\_Mello](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/andre_mello/32/7333_2.png) [@Andre\_Mello](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Andre_Mello)\
**Post date:** [April 5, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/differentailequations-jl-error-on-multiple-shooting-objective/22387/3 "2019-04-05T16:06:41Z")

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Thanks for the reply @Vaibhavdixit02! I missed the BVP example at the examples page.

The examples cleared some doubts on how to use it but raised others on how it works. To my surprise, the code behind it was simple enough so that I could gather its workings after some investigation. I still have to wrap my head around some parts of it, but it still much more readable than I expected!