Re: [Gretl-devel] Duplicate variable name in workfile
On Wed, 1 Jan 2014, Sven Schreiber wrote:
Am 31.12.2013 18:34, schrieb Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti:
> This is in fact a bit disturbing, but is a consequence of the fact that
> internally the two object are distinct. The fact that series have a name
> is (surprising as it may sound) little more than a convenience for the
> user. Internally, series are identified by their progressive order. If
> you could send us the original Stata file, we could see why we end up
> with duplicate labels and how we could modify the auto-renaming
> algorithm to avoid similar cases in the future.
See the other messages, the problem is mostly solved. However, may I
insist that gretl "identifiers" (official parlance) be actually
identifying, and not just a convenience handle. Especially since the
internal ID numbers are not time-invariant, either.
Names of series _should_ indeed be uniquely identifying; that is
certainly the intent. Neither the names nor the ID numbers of series
are immutable: you can rename a series, and a series of a given name
can be renumbered if a lower-numbered series is deleted.
Nonetheless, names ought to be unique (across all gretl objects, not
just series) and there's code in place to try to ensure that.
Apparently the code was defeated in this instance -- I'm not sure
how, and I haven't heard of it happening before. (Well, to be
precise, I have seen it before on rare occasions in the relatively
distant past, in consequence of identifiable bugs that were
subsequently fixed.)
I'd second Jack's suggestion: if you can send us the original .dta
file maybe we can find out how the duplicate name came into being,
though we might also need a hint as to what sort of commands were
executed after opening the Stata file.
Allin