Release 11.2 is mainly a maintenance upgrade, addressing some smaller bugs that were detected since GEMPACK Release 11.1 (May
2012) of GEMPACK was introduced and building on previous improvements. Additional improvements are listed below.
Improvements and new features
Parameters in batch files
GEMPACK now allows you to pass replaceable parameters from the command line to CMF files. For example, either of the commands:
will cause each occurrence of <p1> within sim.cmf to be replaced at runtime by 1.3. For example, if sim.cmf contained the line:
shock realwage = <p1> ;
GEMPACK would translate this at runtime to:
shock realwage = 1.3 ;
The facility is designed to assist in the running of multiple similar simulations using BATch files. The syntax and operation mimics the operation
of the replaceable parameters %1, %2, and so on, which can appear in a BAT file. For more details see the GEMPACK
manual.
A document (with examples you can run) containing ideas of how you might use replaceable parameters for CMF files is contained in this archive item.
Longer lines in TAB files
Lines in TAB files can now be up to 255 characters long, allowing more freedom in TABLO code layout (previous limit was 80). However, note that:
If your TAB file contains lines longer than 80 characters, older versions of TABLO will not be able to process it. That might hamper
distribution of the TAB file to others. To remind you of this, TABmate still (by default) shows a grey vertical line at 80 characters. A new
TABmate command, Tools...Wrap TAB lines at 80, rearranges lines to suit older TABLO versions.
The "labelling information" (text between hash [#] characters) in a TAB file is still limited to 80 characters. A syntax error will be raised
if you exceed this. In fact we advise you to limit this labelling information to 70 characters -- see next point.
The "long name" or description associated with each header in a HAR file is still limited to 70 characters. Sometimes these "long names" are
variable or coefficient descriptions generated by GEMPACK from labelling information (text between hash [#] characters) in a TAB file. As in
previous GEMPACK releases, silent truncation of labelling information down to 70 characters can occur.
Other Improvements
Source-code GEMPACK now works with "Intel Visual Fortran Composer XE 2013" also known as "Intel Fortran 13". This latest Intel Fortran gives
lower LTG times than previous Intel versions.
Several ancillary programs that were separately downloadable are now included in the main distribution. For example, the DAggHAR program may
be useful if you want to split sectors or regions in your database.
Continued work to improve the GEMPACK manual, such as improving its index.
Improvements to GUI (Windows) programs
GUI programs like AnalyseGE, ViewHAR and ViewSOL have a Help..What's New menu item which lists recent improvements. These include:
AnalyseGE and RunGEM now behave more pleasingly on large monitors, and window positions are remembered for your next session.
TABmate has a 'Run CMF' button to let you instantly run short jobs.
When viewing a SL4 file in ViewHAR, the History menu item now shows you the "verbal description" of the simulation; which TAB file produced
it; and the creation time of the SL4 file.
When viewing a [non-timeseries] SL4 file in ViewSOL, the Description menu item now shows you which TAB file produced it.
In ViewSOL, a new button on the upper toolbar gives access to a Closure Summary. This contains (a) a text listing of exogenous and endogenous
variables, and (b) CMF lines needed to reproduce the closure. This might be useful if the original CMF file contained so many SWAP statements that
you are unsure which variables ended up exogenous!
ViewSOL now allows much quicker switching between {Base, Policy, Difference} and {Cumulative, Year-On-Year} views of Time-series solutions.
In ViewHAR, the Sparse Sorted View now allows you to sort either ascending or descending. This is useful when viewing percent change results
-- you can see which sectors contracted most.
ViewHAR (and other Pascal-based GEMPACK programs) now let you use an exclamation mark to mark an end-of-line comment for character data in
GEMPACK Text Data files. Previously this was an undocumented feature of MODHAR and other Fortran-based GEMPACK programs.
Availability
Release 11.2 will be supplied to all new GEMPACK purchasers from May 2013. Current subscribers to the annual payment
scheme for the source-code version of GEMPACK are advised to download a free upgrade -- they should email sales@gempack.com (specifying their licence number) for further details.