[Gretl-devel] special syntax for "end of matrix"

The recent fix to the biprobit command led me to think about the fact that we currently don't have a way to indicate the element of a matrix that is second-from-last, third-from-last, etc. At present we have to use contructs like <hansl> b = a[3:rows(a)-1] </hansl> In matlab, you can use the "end" keyword, as in <matlab> b = a(3:end-1) </matlab> I was wondering if we could have the same syntax (and ideally extend it to other multidimensional objects, such as arrays). After all, "end" is already a reserved word, so there's no risk of "end" being a pre-existing identifier. This feature would probably complicate a bit the handling of the matrix slicing syntax, but I guess it's doable. Question #1: is this desirable? (My answer: yes) Question #2: is this doable? (I guess it is) Question #3: is this worth implementing for 2021d, which is going to be out soon? (maybe not). ------------------------------------------------------- Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali (DiSES) Università Politecnica delle Marche (formerly known as Università di Ancona) r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it http://www2.econ.univpm.it/servizi/hpp/lucchetti -------------------------------------------------------