\documentclass[english]{article}
\newcommand{\code}{\emph}
\newcommand{\pkg}{\textsl}
\title{Time Series Programming Kernel tframe Package}


\begin{document}
\maketitle

%\VignetteIndexEntry{tframe Guide}
\SweaveOpts{eval=TRUE,echo=TRUE,results=hide,fig=FALSE}
\begin{Scode}{echo=FALSE,results=hide}
 options(continue="  ")
\end{Scode}

The functions in this package are made available with

\begin{Scode}
library("tframe")  
\end{Scode}

The code from the vignette that generates this guide can 
be loaded into an editor with \code{edit(vignette("Guide", package="tframe"))}.
This uses the default editor, which can be changed using \code{options()}.

The \pkg{tframe} functions are programming utilities used by other packages.
For example, packages \pkg{dse}, \pkg{tsfa}, \pkg{TSdbi} use this set of 
utilities. (See the \pkg{tfplot} for some user utilities that were previously
included in this package.)
The object of these functions is to be able to write code with
\code{tframe(y) <- tframe(x)}, to assign the time attributes (tframe) of
\code{x} to \code{y}, without needing to handle details of the time 
representation and without concern for the number of series in \code{x} 
and \code{y}, which need not be the same. A check is made to ensure the number of periods in the
data correspond with the number implied by the tframe.


The hope is that this is done in a 
way that allows easy extention in the future. That is, code using \pkg{tframe}
should not need to be changed if some data has a newly introduce time 
representation. This may require some changes to tframe itself, but the design 
should usually allow new representations to be accommodated by additional 
methods for those representation.

There is an attempt to use the same time representation for \code{y} 
as \code{x} has (e.g. ts, zoo, its), but this cannot be guaranteed 
because \code{y} may not be 
representable using the \code{x} represnetation. For example, \code{x} 
might be an "mts" constructed with \code{ts()} whereas \code{y} is a 
list with some data structures. In this case, a "pure tframe" approach 
is used.

The main programing utilities are \code{tframe} and \code{tframe<-}.
For additinal details see the help for these and \code{tframe-package}.
\end{document}