Re: [Gretl-devel] missing() and ok()

On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Sven Schreiber wrote: > Allin Cottrell schrieb: >> On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Sven Schreiber wrote: >> >>> ok() also supports lists, while missing() doesn't, is this deliberate? >> >> For ok() with a list argument the return value is unambiguous: >> it's a series with 1s for observations where no values are >> missing, 0s otherwise. With missing() it's not so clear what it >> should return if given a list: 1s for all missing, or for any >> missing? >> > > Well, missing() seems to be designed as being in some sense the negation > of ok(). So that would mean missing() is equivalent to "not ok()"; in > this list context missing() would be 1 for *any* missing value in a > variable. Personally this strikes me as quite intuitive and also > practical -- I mean when would you ever be really interested if a series > had *all* n of its values missing, as opposed to, say, "only" n-1 missings? > > But I can easily live without it, I was mainly wondering whether this > was just an oversight. Actually, there could be some scope for allowing list arguments in missing(): if we had that missing(X) returns 1 when all members of X are missing, we'd cover all possibilities: ok(X) = 1 -> none missing ok(X) = 0 -> some missing (could be all) missing(X) = 1 -> all missing missing(X) = 0 -> some ok (could be all)