Re: [Gretl-devel] A way to read RData files in gretl

Am 28.09.2017 um 17:42 schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti: > On Wed, 27 Sep 2017, Allin Cottrell wrote: >>> reconsider the policy that gretl function packages must not depend on R. >>> R has become so widespread, and also we have in gretl the very nice >>> possibility to define and call your own R functions directly (see section >>> 38.7 of the user guide), that it almost seems silly not to leverage all >>> the potential. Even Eviews has been doing it for a while already. >> >> I agree; I'd be OK with gretl packages that depend on R -- provided that >> what they do really requires R, it's not something that can be done >> without too much difficulty using native gretl commands or functions. > > Ok, I hear what you say. > > However, I'm not too keen on the idea that someone downloads a package, > watches it fail because R is not installed and concludes that "gretl > sucks". > > What if we added a flag to the package properties ("needs_R" or similar), > and then we forbid installation of the package if R is not on the system, > with an appropriately prominent error message? > > That would be rather easy to do, and prevent misunderstandings. Yes, either that, or we require the authors of such packages to have their packages check for R (if that's currently possible I'm not sure) and print out a corresponding message if it's missing. Package moderators would have to verify that.