Hello,

I would make a note respective the different behavior of the command "setobs n 1:1 --stacked-cross-section" by comparison with the appropriate functionality in the GUI. I wouldn't say it's a mistake, but it evokes some confusion.

Suppose you have a dataset "Umsatz_Panel.txt", which contains the sales of i =4 units over t = 2 periods, for example:

1980

2110

2200

2312

2455

2380

4200

4560

Opening the file in the GUI you choose the data-structure "panel"  and then "gestapelte Querschnitte" (stacked cross-sectional). The result will be the following:

1:1   1980

1:2   2110

1:3   2200

1:4   2312

2:1   2455

2:2   2380

2:3   4200

2:4   4560

That looks good.and the representation of the identifier has the format "t:i" as expected (because the first staple of cross-sectional data belongs to the period 1 etc.).

If you open the file "Umsatz_Panel.txt" in a script with the commands:

open "Umsatz_Panel.txt"

setobs 4 1:1 --stacked-cross-section

then you get the result

1:1   1980

1:2   2455

2:1   2110

2:2   2380

3:1   2200

3:2   4200

4:1   2312

4:2   4560

This is not the same representation as in the GUI, Gretl has changed the format  "t:i" into "i:t" !! I know, that "i:t" is the preferred and standard representation for panel data in Gretl. If you store the above representation "t:i" (received over the GUI) in a gdt-file and load this again, you will then get the same result, will say the representation "i:t".

First I was a little bit confused concerning the different behavior in the GUI and in the script. But i think it should work identically !!

In respect of the command "setobs n 1:1 --stacked-time-series" the behavior is the same as in the GUI !

Best wishes

Jürgen Malitte