latex required for building addons (even though no --enable-build-doc)
by Sven Schreiber
Hi again,
I'm noticing that I cannot build from git without having a Latex
installation, when I want to also build the addons. In other words, the
regular gretl build skips Latex and pdf creation when the configure
option --enable-build-doc is _not_ given, but using
--enable-build-addons fails without Latex.
Not a big deal of course, but on a Debian test system I had to pull in
texlive-latex-recommended, texlive-fonts-recommended,
texlive-latex-extra just because of that, which is easily 1GB in size.
thanks,
sven
5 years, 1 month
flatten() behavior
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
about the new 'flatten' function: For the case of string arrays I think
it would be good to have some choice about the separator. Currently a
newline (\n) is inserted after each string, which is reasonable.
However, there's an unused argument ('vcat') which could be used to
choose for example a blank (" ") instead. An alternative would be to
introduce another optional argument where the user could specify the
string for joining (or separating) the input strings.
This would be useful if the input array actually holds textual
representations of numbers, which can then be processed with sscanf.
Both alternatives would be backwards compatible, but flatten is so new
that that's not very important I guess.
thanks
sven
5 years, 1 month
Windows and gtk3
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
this is a message and suggestion without any urgency, just picking up
bits and pieces from various years (!).
I think it would be good to move the Windows version of gretl to using
gtk3 instead of gtk2, at least as an option, if at all technically
possible. First of all I would hope that it gets a more "modern" look
automatically through that. Secondly it would be really cool to run
gretl in a browser window, as discussed on this list in March ("GTK
broadway support in gretl?"), and already back in 2014.
Some more background: Six years ago Allin announced ("gtk version in
gretl build" in October 2013) that on Linux gtk3 was the preferred
framework. Later after version 2017d it was made easier to build gretl
on Windows, as I tested myself back then. (BTW, the build appendix C of
the guide still does not mention documents like
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/winbuild/gretl-winbuild.pdf.) That
Windows build document does not really mention the assumed GTK version,
but the underlying package list
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/winbuild/pkglist.txt is only made
for gtk2 (for example with mingw-w64-x86_64-gtk2).
Are there any known problems wih gtk3 on Windows that have been observed
after, say, after 2017? If not I'd like to try this eventually, after
the summer.
thanks
sven
5 years, 1 month
Accessing a package's version
by Artur Tarassow
Hi all,
Since gretl supports the idea of package dependencies now, I think it's
useful to add an accessor to a package's version for checking that the
required version is actually installed on the system.
In python one has those magic methods of which one is
PACKAGE.__version__. Do we have such an accessor available in gretl?
Given that it exists in the spec-file it should be possible to grab it,
or not?
Thanks,
Artur
5 years, 2 months
error messages list
by Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Every now and then, when writing scripts, I'd like to use error codes that
are consistent with those in libgretl; of course we have access to the
source code, so it's easy to see what the available error codes are
(https://sourceforge.net/p/gretl/git/ci/master/tree/lib/src/gretl_errors.c),
but every now and then I find myself using this kind of thing:
<hansl>
set verbose off
k = 1
err = 0
loop while !err --quiet
catch s = errmsg(k)
err = $error
if !err
printf "%3d: %s\n", k++, s
endif
endloop
</endloop>
Would it be worthwhile to add the output of the above to the
documentation? And if so, where?
-------------------------------------------------------
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali (DiSES)
Università Politecnica delle Marche
(formerly known as Università di Ancona)
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www2.econ.univpm.it/servizi/hpp/lucchetti
-------------------------------------------------------
5 years, 2 months
Issue with boxplot
by Artur Tarassow
Hi all,
calling user-defined settings for a boxplot seem not to work with the
--panel option (tried on latest git and gnuplot v5.2p6 on ubuntu 19.04):
<hansl>
open abdata.gdt --quiet
# title not printed
boxplot ys --panel --output=display { set title 'My Title'; }
# Works
boxplot ys --output=display { set title 'My Title'; }
</hansl>
Best,
Artur
5 years, 2 months
Feature request: accessor for </etc/machine-id>
by Artur Tarassow
Hi Allin and Jack,
Often one works, at least me, on different machines which may have
different directory structures; something like
<hansl>
scalar MACHINE = 1
if MACHINE==1
string wd = "home/user_b/Dropbox/project/"
elif MACHINE==2
string wd = "home/user_B/SomStuff/project/"
endif
</hansl>
This requires that one always need to select manually some active
machine. Linux (and I guess also Windows and MacOS), however, stores a
unique identifier for every machine, try <cat /etc/machine-id>. See e.g.
here for details: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/machine-id.5.html
Do you also consider it worthy to add such an accessor which could be
named "idmachine". Alternatively it could be stored in the bundle
accessed by $sysinfo.
Best,
Artur
5 years, 2 months
panel FE with constant dep var: what does gretl do?
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
for testing purposes I stumbled over the question of gretl's ways of
running a fixed effects (FE) panel regression when the dependent
variable is not time-varying. Example:
<hansl>
open abdata
panel IND const INDOUTPT # FE per default
</hansl>
I would have thought that gretl either refuses to execute this, or
perhaps would drop the fixed effects, or something. But it reports some
-arguably strange- output wihtout explicit indication of a problem. (Is
this perhaps due to the panel being unbalanced?)
Thanks for any clarification
sven
5 years, 2 months
conv2d documentation
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
my discovery tour of new gretl functions goes on - thanks for adding the
conv2d function!
However, I think the documentation needs to be adapted to the new
situation.
For example, in section 18.3 of the guide (Neat tricks) the convolution
is described. It still says there that "There's no dedicated function to
do that". However, now conv2d(p,q) now does that (as a special 1d-case I
guess) and produces exactly the needed outcome.
The function reference for conv2d itself could be a little more
explicit. For example it could mention exactly this special case of
vectors as inputs and the relationship with polynomial multiplication.
(About 2d-convolution I'm not sure if perhaps there exist slightly
different definitions or conventions? If so, a precise reference would
also help.)
thanks
sven
5 years, 2 months
regsub and escape sequences
by Sven Schreiber
Hi,
not sure if it's a bug, but looks at least like some inconsistency:
<hansl>
eval regsub("ha", "a", "\n") # works
eval regsub("ha", "a", sprintf("\"")) # works
eval regsub("ha", "a", "\"") # fails
</hansl>
I know that plain literal strings in gretl aren't made for escape
sequences, but the regsub doc says that the last arguments are
interpreted as regular expressions, so I thought the \" would work. The
\n works here, too.
thanks
sven
5 years, 2 months
