Gretl Manual: Gnu Regression, Econometrics and Time-series Library
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# gretlcli

`gretlcli`

— Opens the program and waits for user input.

`gretlcli` `datafile`

— Starts the program with the specified datafile in its workspace. The data file may be in native `gretl` format, CSV format, or BOX1 format (see Chapter 4). The program will try to detect the format of the file and treat it appropriately. See also the Section called Path searching for path-searching behavior.

`gretlcli --help` (or `gretlcli -h`)

— Prints a brief summary of usage.

`gretlcli --version` (or `gretlcli -v`)

— Prints version identification for the program.

`gretlcli --pvalue` (or `gretlcli -p`)

— Starts the program in a mode in which you can interactively determine p-values for various common statistics.

`gretlcli --english` (or `gretlcli -e`)

— Force use of English instead of translation.

`gretlcli --run` `scriptfile` (or `gretlcli -r` `scriptfile`)

— Execute the commands in `scriptfile` then hand over input to the command line. See the Section called Path searching for path-searching behavior.

`gretlcli --batch` `scriptfile` (or `gretlcli -b` `scriptfile`)

— Execute the commands in `scriptfile` then exit. When using this option you will probably want to redirect output to a file. See the Section called Path searching for path-searching behavior.

When using the `--run` and `--batch` options, the script file in question must call for a data file to be opened. This can be done using the `open` command within the script. For backward compatibility with Ramanathan's original `ESL` program another mechanism is offered (`ESL` doesn't have the `open` command). A line of the form:

    	(* ! myfile.gdt *)

will (a) cause `gretlcli` to load `myfile.gdt`, but will (b) be ignored as a comment by the original `ESL`. Note the specification carefully: There is exactly one space between the begin comment marker, `(*`, and the `!`; there is exactly one space between the `!` and the name of the data file.

One further kludge enables `gretl` and `gretlcli` to get datafile information from the `ESL` "practice files" included with the `gretl` package. A typical practice file begins like this:

`(* PS4.1, using data file DATA4-1, for reproducing Table 4.2 *)`

This algorithm is used: if an input line begins with the comment marker, search it for the string `DATA` (upper case). If this is found, extract the string from the `D` up to the next space or comma, put it into lower case, and treat it as the name of a data file to be opened.

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