Documentation confusion

[paues]

In the documentation for the wfopen command, it says

“names=("arg1","arg2",…)”, user specified column names, where arg1, arg2, … are names of the first series, the second series, etc. when names are provided, these override any names that would otherwise be formed from the column headers.

This format for a list is somewhat unusual in EViews, which in my experience tend to use simple space-separated lists:

• like this: series1 series2 series3
• not like this: "series1", "series2", "series3"

To change a list to the second format you need to do something like this:

Code: Select all

%my_list = "series1 series2 series3" %my_list = @wreplace(%my_list, "*", """*"",", "all")

and then use that list like this:

Code: Select all

names=({%my_list})

I suspect that many users might find that unintuitive.

But lo and behold, this is not required. And wfopen accepts the standard list type just fine (or at least the import command does, but it according to the documentation uses the same syntax). So you don't have to write

Code: Select all

names=("series1", "series2", "series3")

but can simply write

Code: Select all

names=(series1, series2, series3)

or using a ready-made list

Code: Select all

names=({%my_list})

It would be good if the documentation made this clear.