[Gretl-devel] more function package news

I said I'd have gretl 1.8.4 out by now, but I found that fixing problems with the user-function GUI led me further "down the rabbit hole" than I expected. I discovered quite a lot of code in lib/src/gretl_func.c, and also in the associated GUI C files, that was partially duplicated and/or not readily comprehensible, which may well count for the "flakiness" that Sven mentioned. I've therefore done a good deal of clean-up (plus addition of comments) in those areas. I've also relaxed what I think was the most awkward limitation in the function-package design up to gretl 1.8.3, namely the fact that a package could only have one public interface. Now packages can contain as many public (and private) functions as you like. This is all good, but as with all new code it needs some testing. So if anyone can find some time over the next few days to beat on anything to do with editing or calling function packages, I'd be very grateful. Then we'll get gretl 1.8.4 out. Reminder: cleaned-up function packages for use with current CVS gretl can be found at http://www.wfu.edu/~cottrell/newgfn/ Two further comments: * At present you define the list of functions belonging to a package at the time of initial construction of the package; and there's no way, in the GUI, to add or remove functions from a package. I plan to remedy this before long, but probably not for the 1.8.4 release. * Now that packages can offer more than one public function there's a potential ambiguity over the "Help text". I've resolved this for now by locating the Help at the package level. That is, suppose you have a package "sfa" that has public functions "sfa_mod" and "sfa_hetmod" (I'm taking a possible reorganization of Gordon Hughes's contribution as an example). In that case the help text that you enter in the GUI package editor should cover both functions. If the user does "help sfa_mod" or "help sfa_hetmod", in either case they'll get a redirect to the help text for the parent package. Allin.