On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Allin Cottrell wrote:
[...]
> One side effect is worth noting. According to the manual, the way
> to create a matrix out of data series is, e.g.,
>
> matrix m = { x1, x2, x3 }
>
> with the names of the series separated by commas. Up till now,
> however, this would also work:
>
> matrix m = { x1 x2 x3 }
>
> This was just sloppiness, and it won't work any more.
I hope there are not many scripts around that rely on the latter syntax.
With a construct like the above, CVS version now simply gives "Syntax
error in command line". I do welcome the change, but perhaps we ought to
define a new error code and a corresponding error message for cases like
this; something like "Obsolete syntax", perhaps?
> There are no doubt some new issues introduced by this change
> that will need to be hashed out. But the warning I gave earlier
> about the state of CVS related to breakage of previously valid
> uses of genr, and I believe that problem is now fixed.
Thank you, this is really useful. From the user side we have obvious
benefits; the benefits on the developer side are maybe less obvious, but
even more dramatic: we get rid of a series of ad-hoc treatments and
incorporate lists fully into the genr jurisdiction. I guess that in the
future, when time allows, we'll have to do the same with strings.
Riccardo (Jack) Lucchetti
Dipartimento di Economia
Università Politecnica delle Marche
r.lucchetti(a)univpm.it
http://www.econ.univpm.it/lucchetti
