The following sections describe important additions and changes to the standard EViews documentation.
Help System
Help System Notes on page 3 offers a detailed description of the EViews help system. In addition, if you are currently experiencing difficulties with the help system, the following quick links offer discussions of and solutions to known issues: My browser displays a blank help page on page 8. The help system appears to freeze when loading on page 10. The help search/index tab does not work properly on page 11. I only get the JavaScript version of the help system on page 11. My IE 7 tabs are incorrectly displayed and labeled on page 13
2 Read Me
Overview
The EViews help system may be launched either from within EViews (by selecting Help and one of the help topics from your main menu) or directly from the Windows filesystem. The EViews helps system opens in your default web browser. In the right-hand frame of the browser window will be displayed help system content. The icon on the upper-right hand corner may be used the print the current page, while the right and left-arrows page forward and backward through the help system. (The remaining icon is described below.)
On the left-hand frame of the browser window are tabs which provide navigation and search tools. Here we see the Contents tab, which offers a tree structured view of the help contents. Simply click on an entry to show the selected content in the right-hand frame. Clicking on the Search tab displays tools that allow you to perform full-text search of the help system. Simply enter the relevant text in the edit field, use the combo to specify the scope of the search, and click on OK.
Overview5
The bottom-portion of the tab will display the results of your search. The first two columns provide information about the page containing the specified content; the third column provides a relevancy rank score for the page. Clicking on an entry displays the selected content in the right-hand side frame. You may display the location of the current page in the Contents tab by clicking on the icon in the upper-left hand corner of the page. The left-hand frame will show the Contents tab with the tree opened to the location of the page. Clicking on the Index tab displays the index entries for the help system. Selecting any item in the index displays the content in the right-hand frame. We discuss the Index tab further in the next sections. The Favorites tab (which may not be available for your help configuration) allows you to tag pages for later reference. You may add the current page to the favorites list, remove pages from the existing list, or selected items in the list to navigate quickly to a specific page.
Overview7
The JavaScript version, displayed below in Firefox 2.0.0.2, offers a different index system, with a list of letters provided at the top of the index window; clicking on a letter brings up entries beginning with that letter. While not visible in this screen image, the browser window Address field shows that we are using the JavaScript version of the help (the java in the address displayed in the earlier example is replaced by js. Lastly, note that the JavaScript version does not support the Favorites tab.
Internet Explorer
Proper display in Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0 requires that your browser security settings be at most Medium (to check your security settings in IE, select Tools/Internet Options, click on the Security tab, select the Internet zone and Local intranet, and confirm that the Security level slider is no higher than Medium).
Firefox
The Firefox 2.0.0.2 settings are in Tools/Options/Content. Make certain that either or both (preferably both) of the Enable Java or Enable JavaScript checkboxes are selected.
Mozilla
Mozilla 1.7 settings for Java and JavaScript are in Edit/Preferences/Advanced and Edit/ Preferences/Advanced/Scripts & Plug-ins, respectively.
Opera
Opera 9.10 settings are in Tools/Preferences.../Advanced/Content.
We have found, however, that initial loading times can be somewhat lengthy (up to 30 seconds or so), with little visual indication that additional content is being loaded. This is especially true when accessing help over a network. Furthermore, load times in Internet Explorer 7.0 appear to be significantly longer than in other browsers. We hope to improve load times in the future.
Opera. If none of these apply and you still are getting the JavaScript help, you may need to install and enable the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or reset help settings in your browsers.
Financial Functions
EViews 6 includes a set of functions for performing calculations commonly employed in financial analysis. These functions allow you to compute various values associated with annuities for each observation in the workfile sample (e.g., present value, payment amount). See Financial Functions on page 738 of the Users Guide I for a discussion.
procs is provided in Distribution Plot Data on page 365 and Group Procedures Overview on page 414 of the Users Guide I. To save your distribution graph data via command you may use the new Series::distdata (p. 366) command described in the Command Reference. Support for saving data from kernel, nearest neighbor plots and quantile-quantile plots is offered by the new Group::distdata (p. 198) command (also in the Command Reference).
Getting Started
Getting Started
p. 3. (+) Add screenshot and description of the licensing method choice that is offered the first time you run EViews.
Users Guide I
Title Page
<none> The 9-digit zip code for QMS has been changed to 92612-2621.
Chapter 1. Introduction
p. 5. First sentence under the heading Installing and Running EViews: EViews 5 should obviously read EViews 6.
Chapter 3. Workfiles
p. 52. Last paragraph on the page: (1) saved in EViews 5 should read saved in EViews 6; (2) change cross-reference in last sentence to see Workfile Compatibility on page 19 of Getting Started.
p. 395. (+) Add discussion of the distribution data proc which allows you to save data from histogram, kernel density, theoretical density, theoretical quantile-quantile and other distribution graphs.
p. 740. The first sentence incorrectly describes the default argument for the cumulative statistics. The corrected sentence reads By default, EViews will use the entire workfile range when computing the statistics. p. 744. The examples of the @msum and @mav functions have been changed from @mov-
p. 745 The description of the parameter range restriction for the lognormal distribution has an error: it should be changed to 0 < m < . p. 749. The syntax description for @quantilesby should have the final comma as part of the optional argument (i.e., the comma should be inside the [). p. 756. There is a spurious ] in the entry for @insert.
p. 757. The syntax description for @str should have the final comma as an optional argument (inside the [).
Users Guide II
Title Page
<none> The 9-digit zip code for QMS has changed to 92612-2621.
Command Reference21
Command Reference
Preface
p. 1. Bottom of page: contains... should be changed to contain additional material.
Coef
p. 17. Add the phrase to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads which may be used to label output in tables and graphs.
Equation
p. 27. (+) Add cross-reference entry for the depfreq view.
p. 29. (+) Add documentation of the @ncross and @npers data members which return the number of cross-sections and number of workfile periods used in estimation, respectively.
p. 44. (+) Add entry for the depfreq view of an equation estimated by binary, count, or ordered methods. The view displays a frequency and cumulative frequency table for the dependent variable. p. 47. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 62. The syntax listing for ls in a panel equation setting incorrectly lists @cxreg and @perreg options keywords. These keywords are not available for panel estimation and should be removed. Add examples for panel least squares estimation.
Factor
p. 101. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Graph
p. 154. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Group
p. 184. (+) Add cross-reference entry for the distdata proc for saving the results of distribution graphs (kernel fits, local regression fits, quantile-quantile plots) to the workfile. p. 198. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 199. (+) Add entry for the distdata proc of an equation. The proc saves the results used to construct distribution graphs (kernel fits, local regression fits, quantile-quantile plots) into one or more matrices in the workfile. p. 210. In the table providing examples of date formatting, the special WF date format description should refer to the period display format instead of the date display format.
Link
p. 223. The description of the label command in Link Views on page 223 should read label information for the link. p. 223. The description of the displayname command in Link Procs on page 223 should read set display name. p. 223. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Command Reference23
p. 226. Clarify the default frequency conversion behavior of linkto when working with undated workfiles. (+) Revise the discussion of frequency conversion in the linkto proc to reflect the improved behavior of frequency conversion when working with panel workfiles.
Logl
p. 238. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Matrix
p. 255. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 262. The corrected reference to Principal Components notes that it appears in Users Guide I. p. 262. The page for the cross-reference for Covariance Analysis in the printed manual is incorrect. The sentence should read See also Covariance Analysis beginning on page 380 of the Users Guide I.
Model
p. 276. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 279. (+) Document new model solve options for verbose diagnostic messages, and for analytic/numeric Jacobian matrices. p. 287. (+) Add documentation for the settrace proc command for specifying the list of endogenous variables to trace. This command replaces the trace model proc. The trace view command remains as the method of displaying the trace information. p. 282. (+) We have eliminated the trace model proc for specifying the endogenous variables to trace, and replaced it with the settrace proc command. The trace view command remains as the method of displaying the trace information. p. 290. The stochastic model solution options were omitted from the printed documents. Add documentation for the s= options for the stochastic command.
Pool
p. 296. (+) Add documentation of the @npers data member which returns the number of workfile periods used in estimation. p. 305. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
p. 334. The cross-references to the auxiliary commands testdrop (p. 790) and testadd (p. 789) should be replaced with the pool view commands Pool::testdrop (p. 327) and Pool::testadd (p. 326).
Rowvector
p. 338. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Sample
p. 349. The description of the label command in Sample Views on page 349 should read label information for the sample. p. 349. The description of the displayname command in Sample Procs on page 349 should read set display name. p. 349. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Series
p. 356. (+) Add cross-reference entry for the distdata proc for saving the results of distribution graphs to the workfile. p. 364. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 365. (+) Add entry for the distdata proc of an equation. The proc saves the results used to construct distribution graphs into a matrix in the workfile. p. 379. In the table providing examples of date formatting, the special WF date format description should refer to the period display format instead of the date display format. p. 386. Last sentence before Cross-reference: capitalize SER1.
Sym
p. 461. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
System
p. 475. Remove invalid cross-reference listing for the jbera view. The jbera command is only available for VAR objects. p. 486. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Command Reference25
Table
p. 509. (+) Add cross-reference entry for the table view which is the preferred synonym for sheet. p. 512. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 521. In the table providing examples of date formatting, the special WF date format description should refer to the period display format instead of the date display format. p. 530. The entry for the title command is incorrectly labeled table. Also change incorrect links associated with this entry. p. 530. Add a description of the table view for displaying the contents of a table.
Text
p. 533. The description of the label command in Text Views on page 349 should read label information for the text object. p. 533 The description of the displayname command in Text Procs on page 349 should read set display name. p. 533. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Valmap
p. 538. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
Var
p. 553. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of... p. 557. The impulse command: in the descriptions for the options for matbys= and matbyr= (to save impulse responses ordered by shock and by response, respectively), add the word ordered to the first sentence, and append a sentence describing the ordering of the shocks and responses: The response and shock orderings correspond to the ordering of variables in the VAR. p. 557. (+) Add description of new smat= option which permits you to save impulse responses ordered by shock with the shocks and responses in user-specified order. p. 557. (+) Add description of new rmat= option which allows you to save impulse responses ordered by response with the shocks and responses in user-specified order.
Vector
p. 579. Add qualifier to label output to the description of the displayname proc so that it reads may be used to label output in place of...
p. 678. The cross-reference entry for statusline should read send message to the status line.
Command Reference27
p. 689. Add note in the cd entry pointing out that include file processing does not use the default directory. Add cross reference to the include entry. p. 699 (+) Revise the discussion of Frequency Conversion Options in the copy command to reflect the improved behavior of frequency conversion between panel workfiles and pages of different frequency. Also clarify the default behavior of copy involving undated workfiles and the behavior of match merging with duplicate IDs in the source and destination workfiles or pages. p. 741. Update entry for output to correctly document limitations with the c (command logging) option. Note that this option is only applicable in a program when used in conjunction with the pon command which enables automatic printing of output. The use of pon is not required when output is specified in a command window. p. 751. (+) Add entry for the pagerefresh command for refreshing links and autoupdating series in the active workfile page that depend on external data sources. p. 768. (+) Add entry for the pageunlink command which converts all links and autoupdating series in the active workfile page into ordinary series and alpha objects. p. 785. The exit= option for the spawn command specifies the exit code the process will return if successful, not not successfully as described in the printed documentation. p. 796. Update the unlink entry to note that in addition to breaking link objects, unlink converts auto-updating series into ordinary series and alpha objects. Add additional cross-reference information to pageunlink and wfunlink.
p. 810. (+) Add entry for the wfrefresh command for refreshing links and auto-updating series in the active workfile that depend on external data sources. p. 812. (+) Add entry for the wfstats command for displaying the workfile statistics summary view. p. 812. (+) Add entry for the wfunlink command which converts all links and autoupdating series in the active workfile into ordinary series and alpha objects.
p. 826. Add description of the valid time unit strings to the entries for @datefloor function. Remove incorrect description of default setting for time unit argument. p. 826. Fix problems with the entry for the @datepart function. The function uses a date string format fmt, not a time unit, u. Further, in the examples: the w format corresponds to the day of the week (Monday=1) not the week in the month, and yy should return the two digit year 99. You should use yyyy to return the four-digit year 1999. p. 827. Add additional cross-reference listing to date formats at the end of the @datestr description. p. 828. Add additional cross-reference listing to date formats at the end of the @dateval description. p. 835. Add additional cross-reference listing to date formats at the end of the @strdate description. p. 836. Add additional cross-reference listing to date formats at the end of the @strnow description.