@dropmap doesn't work

[Ecovi]

Maybe I am missing the obvious here, but this program saves all variables instead of dropping them:

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wfcreate u 1 scalar a1 scalar a2 wfsave filename @dropmap a*

What am I doing wrong?

[EViews Glenn]

@dropmap is for dropping series valmaps when saving to a foreign destination. In fact, as noted in the manual, all of the keywords only work when saving to a foreign destination file. To do what you are doing in this example, you should delete the "a*" then save the workfile using wfsave.

[Ecovi]

Thanks for the prompt reply. Why would this not be made possible to work with normal work files though?
Also, I searched for it but I must admit I cannot find any reference for this in the Eviews Command and Programmming Reference manual (the latest version from April 2013). In fact, the example under the wfsave command section (p. 487) reads:

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wfsave macro @dropmap gdp*

which alludes to the possibility of using @dropmap on saving to local Eviews work files.

[EViews Glenn]

The interface for writing things with keep and drop is much newer than the interface for saving workfiles. You are correct that it would be useful to do, but it's not a trivial thing. To be honest, given that there is an alternative method of achieving the same thing, it's not high on our list. But I'll put it on the list again.

The syntax description at the top of the entry that you cite notes that the keywords work for foreign files. I'll see about getting the example fixed.

[Ecovi]

Thanks for reconsidering building this. It is true that using delete a* is 'an alternative method of achieving the same thing', but this is not true for the @keeplist option, though maybe you could copy the objects to keep to a new workfile and use copy a* to keep only those objects...

[EViews Glenn]

The latter is currently the best approach. We have simple tools for creating a new page from an existing, using wildcard characters.