[Gretl-users] Re: why cmod?

On Fri, 20 Aug 2021, Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti wrote: > On Fri, 20 Aug 2021, Sven Schreiber wrote: > >> Am 12.08.2021 um 14:10 schrieb Sven Schreiber: >>> Am 02.06.2021 um 00:16 schrieb Sven Schreiber: >>>> Hi, >>>> I'm wondering why the cmod() function is needed [...] >>> >>> Sorry, for all these "ping"-style messages, but this wasn't resolved. >>> It's redundant and obsolete since full complex number support has been >>> introduced, isn't it? >> >> OK, perhaps cmod() will be hidden at some time in the future. To be on >> the safe side, I think a good advice (for the few people who actually >> have been using cmod) is to use abs() always. > > I just pushed to git an addition to the help to cmod(). The addition says: > > NOTE: this is a legacy function, and is superseded by the "abs" function. It > is kept for backward compatibility only, but it will be removed at some point. > You may want to adjust your existing scripts. Sorry, but I don't like this much. The worst one can say about cmod is that it's a redundant identifier. It's not exactly a "legacy function": it calls the C library's cabs() just like abs does when given a complex argument. I would prefer to wait until after release, when we could: (1) remove the doc for cmod, (2) make it into an alias for abs, for compatibility, and (3) augment the doc for abs to make it clear that it works on complex numbers.