[Gretl-devel] Re: special syntax for "end of matrix"

On Tue, 14 Sep 2021, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote: > [W]e currently don't have a way to indicate the element of a matrix > that is second-from-last, third-from-last, etc. > > At present we have to use contructs like > > <hansl> > b = a[3:rows(a)-1] > </hansl> > > In matlab, you can use the "end" keyword, as in > > <matlab> > b = a(3:end-1) > </matlab> > > I was wondering if we could have the same syntax (and ideally extend > it to other multidimensional objects, such as arrays). In current git there's a first pass at implementing this, for matrices. It's a bit of a hack, but a more rigorous version would be quite complicated. (That's because, unlike other "dummy" constructs such as "diag", presumably "end" has to work with arithmetic, as in your "end-1" above; it can't be just a stand-alone dummy taking the place of a numerical value, which would be much simpler.)