add a doc note that one should not broadcast to inference variables #258

Author: paul-buerkner

bayesflow/adapters/adapter.py

@@ -338,6 +338,12 @@ def broadcast(
             By default we exclude the last dimension (usually the data dimension) from broadcasting the size.
         squeeze : int or tuple, optional
             Axis to squeeze after broadcasting.
+
+        Notes
+        -----
+        Important: Do not broadcast to variables that are used as inference variables
+        (i.e., parameters to be inferred by the networks). The adapter will work during training
+        but then fail during inference because the variable being broadcasted to is not available.
         """
         if isinstance(keys, str):
             keys = [keys]

bayesflow/adapters/transforms/broadcast.py

@@ -33,6 +33,12 @@ class Broadcast(Transform):
     squeeze : int or tuple, optional
         Axis to squeeze after broadcasting.
 
+    Notes
+    -----
+    Important: Do not broadcast to variables that are used as inference variables
+    (i.e., parameters to be inferred by the networks). The adapter will work during training
+    but then fail during inference because the variable being broadcasted to is not available.
+
     Examples
     --------
     shape (1, ) array: