September 2010 - Dev

Dynare 4.2 release goals and schedule
by Sébastien Villemot 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Hi, I summarize in this e-mail the main release goals for Dynare 4.2, with the name of the responsible person(s) and the associated ticket numbers. Note that there are many other tickets – in particular bugs which need to be fixed – but I only list here the outstanding intended new features : - Symbolic computation of the first order conditions of the Ramsey problem (Sébastien) [#5] - Use of a seed to make estimation deterministic (Michel, Stéphane) [#85] - Estimation with unexpected structural changes (Stéphane) [#13] - Partial information (George) [#21] - Markov-Switching BVAR (Houtan, Michel) [#24] - Automatic generation of the stationary model, given the trends (Houtan) [#19] - Local identification (Marco) [#31] - Parallelization system (Marco, Sébastien) [#55] - Constrained parameters for OSR (Michel) [#58] - Possibility of using the bytecode representations for most tasks (Ferhat, Sébastien) [#11] - User guide: refresh outdated parts, add new chapter on optimal policy (Tommaso, Michel) [#17] The goal is to release the 4.2 version by the beginning of november, which means that the various features should be ready by mid-october. Note that by “ready” I mean that the features must be working reasonably well, have an interface in the MOD-file, be documented (at least on the wiki, preferably in the reference manual), and come with test files in the appropriate directory. Of course I can help you concerning these various aspects, in particular for the interface (which require preprocessor changes) and for the build system. Let me know if you think that you cannot achieve completion of the features that you are responsible for by the mid-october deadline. We will then decide whether to postpone the feature for 4.3 or to delay the release of 4.2. Best, -- Sébastien Villemot CEPREMAP — http://www.cepremap.ens.fr Dynare project — http://www.dynare.org Phone: +33 1 40 77 49 90 PGP Key: 0xA6C029B9D06B2913D71C105EBE37E801FB6EFF8B (http://pgp.mit.edu/)

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Updates for Windows users
by Sébastien Villemot 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

Hi, Recently, the MinGW packages for 32-bit and 64-bit have entered Cygwin. This will facilitate the life of Windows users and developers of Dynare in two ways: - the compilation of Dynare under Windows can now be entirely done under Cygwin, without the need to download an external compiler; the Windows section on the wiki page has been correspondingly updated: http://www.dynare.org/DynareWiki/BuildingDynareFromSource - the "use_dll" option also benefits from this change, and in particular it is possible to use GCC under 64-bit MATLAB with this option. An updated "mexopts.bat" file, using the new MinGW packages, is available on the following page: http://www.dynare.org/DynareWiki/ConfigureMatlabWindowsForMexCompilation Best, -- Sébastien Villemot CEPREMAP — http://www.cepremap.ens.fr Dynare project — http://www.dynare.org Phone: +33 1 40 77 49 90 PGP Key: 0xA6C029B9D06B2913D71C105EBE37E801FB6EFF8B (http://pgp.mit.edu/)

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[Trac] #139: Rename "cygwin" option in "mingw"
by Trac Dynare 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

#139: Rename "cygwin" option in "mingw" --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: sebastien | Owner: sebastien Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Preprocessor | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- The name of the option is misleading since even under Cygwin we internally use MinGW embedded within GCC 3. The old option should give an error message pointing to the new one. Example mexopts.bat should be given for at least 3 cases (in the package and in the wiki): - Cygwin + GCC 3 (hence 32-bit) - MinGW 32-bit (probably for TDM build) - MinGW 64-bit (probably for TDM build) -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/139> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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[Trac] #132: forecast has a bug in models with lag > 1
by Trac Dynare 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

#132: forecast has a bug in models with lag > 1 --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: michel | Owner: michel Type: bug | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Core M-files | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/132> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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strvcat() replaced by char()
by houtan 27 Sep '10

27 Sep '10

Hi All, Fixing ticket #93 entailed the replacement of all instances of the deprecated Matlab function strvcat() with char(). Unfortunately, these two functions are slightly different in that char() does not ignore the empty string as strvcat() does. Hence, code that initializes a character array either with '' or with [], would have all arguments beginning one space later in the array (position 2 as opposed to position 1). You can see the difference in Matlab by doing the following. 1) charArr = []; (or charArr = '';) 2) strvcat(charArr,'a','b') 3) char(charArr,'a','b') After creating commit a20bc07fdf99456c83fa54ccd658575c1d4baa71, I ran make check, which worked fine. However, as the change was nontrivial and touched a lot of .m files, if you have the time it would probably be best to look at the commit to see if any of your project files were effected. If they were, please check to make sure that the change does not affect the way it operates. Please note that inherent in this commit is the assumption that no arguments to char() from positions 2:end are empty. If they are and you were relying on strvcat() to skip them, this will have to be fixed as well. Best, Houtan

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[Trac] #93: Replace functions deprecated in MATLAB 7.10 (R2010a)
by Trac Dynare 27 Sep '10

27 Sep '10

#93: Replace functions deprecated in MATLAB 7.10 (R2010a) --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: sebastien | Owner: Type: bug | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Core M-files | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Among others, the following functions are deprecated in MATLAB 7.10 (R2010a), but still work: {{{isstr, setstr, str2mat, strread, strvcat, textread}}} Every occurrence of these functions should be replaced in the M-files and in the preprocessor, for compatibility with future versions of MATLAB. See http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/rn/br_bpq8-1.html#bsd… for their replacements. -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/93> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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[Trac] #69: Update or remove code for multithreaded DLL using OpenMP
by Trac Dynare 27 Sep '10

27 Sep '10

#69: Update or remove code for multithreaded DLL using OpenMP --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: sebastien | Owner: stepan Type: bug | Status: new Priority: minor | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Core M-files | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Concerns directories: mex/sources/threads matlab/threads and files: matlab/dynare_config.m mex/sources/build_matlab_multithread.m Removed from 4.1 branch in r3259 -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/69> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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[Trac] #125: fix nograph option in forecast instruction
by Trac Dynare 24 Sep '10

24 Sep '10

#125: fix nograph option in forecast instruction --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: michel | Owner: michel Type: bug | Status: new Priority: major | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Core M-files | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/125> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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[Trac] #137: remove occurences of mexErrMsgTxt() in all MEX files
by Trac Dynare 24 Sep '10

24 Sep '10

#137: remove occurences of mexErrMsgTxt() in all MEX files --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- Reporter: sebastien | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: critical | Milestone: 4.2 Component: Core M-files | Version: Keywords: | --------------------------+------------------------------------------------- This function throws a C++ exception, which is not handled correctly by MinGW for 64-bit (at the current time). It appears that the benefits of using MinGW on Windows 64 are greater than the inconvenience of not using that function. In case of error, MEX files should print a meaningful message with mexPrintf(), and then return control to MATLAB (with return()). A new output argument of the MEX file should be dedicated to informing MATLAB of the error condition (the output argument can be 0 in case of success, 1 in case of error). The MATLAB code should check that argument, and in case of failure should run "error('MEX failed')" to interrupt the execution of the code. Note that it is still possible to use C++ exceptions inside the MEX function (as is currently done in k_order_perturbation), so that all error conditions can be catched by the top-level mexFunction(). -- Ticket URL: <https://www.dynare.org/trac/ticket/137> Dynare <http://www.dynare.org> The Dynare project

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Re: [DynareDev] =SWZ dll
by Sébastien Villemot 23 Sep '10

23 Sep '10

Michel Juillard <michel.juillard(a)ens.fr> writes: > since the latest changes, I have an error when trying to compilte SWZ dll: > > michel@michel-lat3:~/dynare/git/dynare/mex/build/matlab/swz$ make > make: *** No rule to make target > ../../../../matlab/swz/c-code/mex/mex_top_level.c', needed by > mex_top_level.o'. Stop. > > for some reason it stil uses mex_top_level.c as implicit prerequisite for > mex_top_level.o instead of mex_top_level.cc It’s a problem of automake. You need to do a "make distclean", then re-configure, then make. Best, -- Sébastien Villemot CEPREMAP — http://www.cepremap.ens.fr Dynare project — http://www.dynare.org Phone: +33 1 40 77 49 90 PGP Key: 0xA6C029B9D06B2913D71C105EBE37E801FB6EFF8B (http://pgp.mit.edu/)

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