Display of Vam File Data

All of the G7 commands for the display of data all work for data in any assigned Vam file; it simply is necessary to prefix the variable name with the bank’s letter designation followed by a period. Thus

vam dyme b
ti Output, Export, and Import of Agriculture
gr b.out1 b.ex1 b.im1
type b.out1
matty b.out1 b.ex1 b.im1

will graph or type out the time series of the first element of the out, ex, and im vectors from the vam file assigned as bank b.

For vam files, however, there is another command that shows vectors and matrices as if one were in a spreadsheet program. This is the show command. For vectors, the format is

show <bank_letter>.<vector_name> [<first_row> [<first_year>]] [<-rt <filename>>] [<-ct <filename>>]

The values of the vector in successive years will appear as columns; dates run across the top and sector numbers down the side. Providing the <first_row> and <first_column> positions will scroll the window accordingly. Row and column titles are read from the files that are specified in the Vam configuration file for the bank loaded in the <bank_letter> slot. If the title files that are specified in the Vam file are not found, then generic row and column titles will be created and displayed. If an alternative set of titles should be displayed, and those titles are stored in text files, then the file names for these alternative row and column titles may be specified at the end of the show command; “-rt” or “rowtitle” (or “-ct” or “columntitle”) and the filename indicate the appropriate file.

The Options menu item allows the user to control the number of decimal places, fonts, and colors of the display. The display can be copied to the clipboard in the usual way for Windows programs. The contents of the clipboard then can be copied into a spreadsheet such as Excel or into a table in a word processor. Select the bottom right cell of the rectangle that you wish to copy. Then select Copy from the menu, and you get to specify how much you want copied – just the numbers or also the frame. It also is possible to go in the other direction, from the spreadsheet into the show window and thus into the Vam file.

For matrices, the show command has a slightly different format:

show <bank_letter>.<matrix_name> <view> <line> [<first_row> [<first_column>]] [-rt <filename>] [-ct <filename>]

The “view” argument must be one of the following:

r:

<line> is the number of the row to be displayed. (A row is displayed as if it were a column.)

c:

<line> is the number of the column to be displayed.

y:

<line> is the year number.

Examples:

show b.am r 5
show b.am c 7
show b.am y 1997

Cutting and pasting works as with vectors. If <first_row> or <first_column> parameters are specified, then the display will scroll to the given row and column position.

Note that this feature is very similar to the gridtype command for displaying time series.