Em 21 de abril de 2014, Logan escreveu:

I have written a function in C# that retrieves data from the BLS API. I can integrate this into gretl using a call to a shell command, i.e. $(…). But I would like to develop, and make available to the gretl community, a getBLS function. Could someone give me some pointers for a better integration of the API call and the gretl script? Or can a command line program be include in a function package? Also, is this a function anyone would use? If so, I might also think about a getFRED function too?

This is good, very good!

By the way, I would like to express a long time idea: I think all of us believe Gretl is a very good and strong tool for econometric analysis, but we have many "competitors". Because of that, I truly believe that enhancing the capabilities to download free data sets (like Fred/Fed, BLS, Banco de España, Yahho Finance, etc.) is a very attractive feature.

So, I would like to suggest that these kind of features were introduced as native functions Gretl (not as packages). Particularly, I would like to contribute helping to put Brazilian data sets into Gretl (here in Brazil we have two very comprehensive economic data sets: Ipeadata and Central Bank. I could try to contact these providers to help us in that "mission".

Best regards,

Henrique