[Gretl-devel] new "system" syntax

This is a follow-up to Sven's posting at http://lists.wfu.edu/pipermail/gretl-devel/2012-January/003663.html I've added a chapter on "Multivariate models" to the User's Guide. I haven't got very far with it yet, but I've included the material Sven posted. However, before we lock this in I think maybe we can improve things a little. 1) In gretl 1.9.7 the option of creating an "anonymous system" (i.e. using the "system" command with neither assignment to a name or a "method=whatever" tag) is confined to functions. But it strikes me: why shouldn't this be available for scripting in general? If you're not interested in creating a GUI session icon, why should you have to name a system? 2) Also in 1.9.7, having defined an anonymous system you are required to use the dummy name "$system" if you want to access the system for the "restrict" or "estimate" commands, as in estimate $system method=sur This seems a bit clunky. Shouldn't such commands just work on the last-defined system by default? So, I'm proposing that one should be able to do the following sort of thing, either inside or outside of functions (with or without the "restrict" bit): <hansl> system equation y1 0 x1 equation y2 0 x2 end system restrict b[1,2] - b[2,2] = 0 end restrict estimate method=sur </hansl> Does anyone see a downside to this? Allin