CmdStan User’s Guide

Version 2.36

This document is a user’s guide for CmdStan, the command-line interface to the Stan statistical modeling language. CmdStan provides the programs and tools to compile Stan programs into C++ executables that can be run directly from the command line, together with a few utilities to check and summarize the resulting outputs.

In CmdStan, statistical models written in the Stan probabilistic programming language are translated into a C++ program which is then compiled together with the CmdStan routines that provide the logic needed to manage all user inputs and program outputs and the Stan inference algorithms and math library. The resulting command line executable program can be used to

The packages CmdStanR and CmdStanPy provide interfaces to CmdStan from R and Python, respectively, similarly, JuliaStan also interfaces with CmdStan.

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Benefits of CmdStan

  • With every new Stan release, there is a corresponding CmdStan release, therefore CmdStan provides access to the latest version of Stan, and can be used to run the development version of Stan as well.

  • Of the Stan interfaces, CmdStan has the lightest memory footprint, therefore it can fit larger and more complex models. It has has the fewest dependencies, which makes it easier to run in limited environments such as clusters.

  • The output generated is in CSV format and can be post-processed using other Stan interfaces or general tools.

Stan documentation

  • Stan User’s Guide The Stan user’s guide provides example models and programming techniques for coding statistical models in Stan. It also serves as an example-driven introduction to Bayesian modeling and inference:

  • Stan Reference Manual Stan’s modeling language is shared across all of its interfaces. The Stan Language Reference Manual provides a concise definition of the language syntax for all elements in the language together with an overview of the inference algorithms and posterior inference tools.

  • Stan Functions Reference The Stan Functions Reference provides definitions and examples for all the functions defined in the Stan math library and available in the Stan programming language, including all probability distributions.

Licensing

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