[Gretl-devel] Re: subtle list in bundle in function problem
Am 16.06.2024 um 16:29 schrieb Allin Cottrell:
On Sun, 16 Jun 2024, Sven Schreiber wrote:
> Am 16.06.2024 um 15:00 schrieb Cottrell, Allin:
>> "bL" is the name of a function, not a bundle, so "bL.L" is a
nonsense
>> string. Is the following what you meant to write?
>
> Whoops, this happened when trying to make the example as minimal as
> possible.
>
> So here's a new variation of what I'm trying to show:
> ...
b.L is reported as a matrix at caller level because inside a bundle
it's just a vector of (putative) series ID numbers. If it turns out
that there are in fact series with those ID numbers at caller level,
the vector can be extracted as a list. But that's not the case here:
the series "x" inside the function has ID 5 (the next number after IDE
with ID 4 in the denmark dataset), and there's no series with that ID
at caller level.
Yep, I basically know all that. I'm also not exactly sure what I'd
prefer in this case. But the point is that when leaving the function,
the list inside the bundle becomes invalid, but nobody tells the user
about this situation. Instead, you get type changes and other side
effects that are only expected when you really know the internals of
gretl. So perhaps what I'm trying to say is that some warning or error
might be useful.
Notice also that when you do 'print b' on the outside scope after the
function call, gretl says:
bundle b:
L (list)
So gretl itself is also stumbling over this. Again, as my title says,
all this is quite subtle and I don't know what a good solution would be.
cheers
sven