Re: [Gretl-devel] strange sum() behavior

Am 13.02.2018 um 18:33 schrieb Allin Cottrell: > On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, Sven Schreiber wrote: >> catch scalar sc = sum(1) # error: "data types not matched" >> catch scalar sc = sum(djclose) # OK >> catch scalar sc = sum(1) # error: "sc is scalar, not acceptable" >> </hansl> First a very minor comment: Isn't it strange that the same lines (1 & 3) result in two different error messages?

> If there's a bug here, it would be accepting "1" as defining a > single-member list in the context of a function argument. Maybe functions > should accept only named lists, and an argument of "1" for sum() should be > flagged as a type error. First I thought "why change something that's working?", but then I thought more about anonymous on-the-fly lists in this context, consider the following: <hansl> open denmark list mylist = 1 eval sum(mylist) # series itself (trivial cross-sum) eval sum(1) # ditto eval sum({1}) # gives 1 mylist = {1, 2} eval sum(mylist) # gives a sum series eval sum({1, 2}) # gives 3 mylist = 1 2 # works eval sum(1 2) # doesn't work (as expected) </hansl> If a function accepts an anonymous single-member list declared by ID such as '1', then it should also accept a more general ID definition. But AFAICS that's not possible in hansl, because of the clash with a standard matrix. (See the "gives 1" and "gives 3" lines above.) So yes, it now seems to me the cleanest solution is to ban such weird (at least to me) anonymous list constructs there! Then this would also be consistent with your rule above about series IDs in functions.