### Name: nearPD
### Title: Nearest Matrix to a Positive Definite Matrix
### Aliases: nearPD
### Keywords: algebra array

### ** Examples

 set.seed(27)
 m <- matrix(round(rnorm(25),2), 5, 5)
 m <- m + t(m)
 diag(m) <- pmax(0, diag(m)) + 1
 (m <- round(cov2cor(m), 2))

 str(near.m <- nearPD(m, trace = TRUE))
 round(near.m$mat, 2)
 norm(m - near.m$mat) # 1.102

 if(require("sfsmisc")) {
    m2 <- posdefify(m) # a simpler approach
    norm(m - m2)  # 1.185, i.e., slightly "less near"
 }

 round(nearPD(m, only.values=TRUE), 9)

## A longer example, extended from Jens' original,
## showing the effects of some of the options:

pr <- Matrix(c(1,     0.477, 0.644, 0.478, 0.651, 0.826,
               0.477, 1,     0.516, 0.233, 0.682, 0.75,
               0.644, 0.516, 1,     0.599, 0.581, 0.742,
               0.478, 0.233, 0.599, 1,     0.741, 0.8,
               0.651, 0.682, 0.581, 0.741, 1,     0.798,
               0.826, 0.75,  0.742, 0.8,   0.798, 1),
             nrow = 6, ncol = 6)

nc.  <- nearPD(pr, conv.tol = 1e-7) # default
nc.$iterations  # 2
nc.1 <- nearPD(pr, conv.tol = 1e-7, corr = TRUE)
nc.1$iterations # 11 (!)
ncr   <- nearPD(pr, conv.tol = 1e-15)
str(ncr)# 3 iterations
ncr.1 <- nearPD(pr, conv.tol = 1e-15, corr = TRUE)
ncr.1 $ iterations #  27 !

## But indeed, the 'corr = TRUE' constraint did ensure a better solution;
## cov2cor() does not just fix it up equivalently :
norm(pr - cov2cor(ncr$mat)) # = 0.09994
norm(pr -       ncr.1$mat)  # = 0.08746