[Gretl-users] Re: 'obs' function parameter type
Am 18.01.2026 um 20:07 schrieb Sven Schreiber:
at the beginning of ch. 14 of the user guide there's the
following
footnote: "An additional parameter type is available for GUI use,
namely obs; this is equivalent to int except for the way it is
represented in the graphical interface for calling a function."
Even though I have authored various function packages, I wasn't aware
of this. Can anybody point me to a package that uses this facility?
For the record, an off-list communication turned up the "suradf" package
which does this.
Basically, what the "obs" thing does (in this context) is that the
integer parameter is interpreted as an observation index, and so in the
graphical package execution dialog the applicable labels for the
observation numbers are shown. E.g., for quarterly data one can select
something like "2005:3" with the mouse in the dialog, and internally the
plain corresponding index number will be used. (Similar to what the
scripting functions obslabel() and obsnum() do.)
cheers
sven