We need to decide if we want to reserve the usage of info(2) for penalty.
When we use a Newton type numerical optimizer to find the mode of the posterior or of the likelihood or when we are searching for optimal parameters in OSR, using stiff penalties creates "cliffs" that the optimizer has difficulties to overcome.
To alleviate the problem, we have tried, whenever possible, to compute penalties commensurate with the violation (sum of square residuals when one can't find the steady state, norm of eigenvalues on the "wrong" side of one for BK violations, ...). These endogenous penalties have been put in info(2). Of course, it is not always possible to compute a commensurate penalty and we still have a few cliffs.
However, we have also used info(2), in a few cases (info(1)==8) to provide additional details about the nature of the error.
I think that we should refrain from using info(2) that way and probably change the handling of the cases that do that, because it leads to confusions. But, I would like to have your advice on that.
It may be the occasion of having a more general discussion on the handling of errors in Dynare. If I remember correclty, some of you would prefer using exceptions. We could also decide that we want to redesign the handling of errors in Dynare.
Please, tell me what you think.
Best