Getting Started with SsfPack 3

Siem Jan Koopman and Jurgen Doornik

October 7, 2008

1 Introduction
SsfPack is a suite of routines that allows Ox programs to carry out computations involving the statis-
tical analysis of univariate and multivariate models in the linear Gaussian state space form. SsfPack
allows for a full range of different state space forms: from a simple time-invariant model to a compli-
cated time-varying model.
The documentation for Ssfpack is provided in:

Koopman, S.J., N. Shephard and J.A. Doornik (1999) Statistical algorithms for models in state
space using SsfPack 2.2 Econometrics Journal, 1999, 2, p.113-166.
See doc/SsfPackV22.pdf.

Koopman, S.J., N. Shephard and J.A. Doornik (2008) SsfPack 3.0: Statistical algorithms for
models in state space, London: Timberlake Consultants Ltd.

2 SsfPack 3 versions
There are two versions of SsfPack 3:

SsfPack Basic
This provides the basic functionality, as discussed in Koopman, S.J., N. Shephard and J.A.
Doornik (1999).

SsfPack Extended
This is the professional version of SsfPack. The SsfPack Extended version includes the func-
tionality of the SsfPack Basic version. In addition to that, it contains algorithms that are compu-
tationally more efficient, and allows for exact treatment of the diffuse conditions for the initial
state vector.

Table 1 provides a detailed comparison of the two versions.

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 SsfPack
Basic SsfPack Extended
Free for academic use only
Includes book
Available from Timberlake Consultants
Basic examples
Extended examples
Windows (32-bit)
Windows (64-bit)
OS X
Linux (32-bit)
Linux (64-bit)
Other platforms on request
AddSsfReg
GetSsfArma
GetSsfReg
GetSsfSpline
GetSsfStsm
KalmanFil
KalmanSmo
SimSmoDraw
SimSmoWgt
SsfAbout
SsfCondDens
SsfLik
SsfLikConc
SsfLikSco
SsfMomentEst
SsfRecursion
SsfVersion
SsfWarning
SsfWeights
GetSsfSarima
KalmanFilEx
KalmanFilMeanEx
KalmanFilSmoMeanEx
KalmanInit
KalmanSmoEx
KalmanSmoMeanEx
SsfBootstrap
SsfCondDensEx
SsfForecast
SsfFreqGain
SsfLikConcEx
SsfLikEx
SsfLikMulti
SsfLikScoEx
SsfMomentEstEx
SsfMomentEstMulti
SsfSignalEst
SsfSimObs
SsfSimState
SsfWeightsEx

Table 1: Comparison of functionality between SsfPack Basic and SsfPack Extended.

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3 SsfPack Extended Installation
3.1 Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000
First ensure that Ox Professional is installed.
Insert the SsfPack CD. If Autorun is on, the installation program is started automatically. Other-
wise start ssfpackex300.exe from the root folder of the CD.
By default, installation is to C:\Program Files\OxMetrics5 (or your language-specific
location for program files). You may choose another location for the OxMetrics5 folder, but the
selected folder must hold the Ox tree (by default, Ox would be in installed into
C:\Program Files\OxMetrics5\ox).

3.2 Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows XP x64

First ensure that Ox Professional (64-bit) is installed.
All 64-bit Windows components are in the x64 folder of the SsfPack CD.
Insert the SsfPack CD. If Autorun is on, the installation program is started automatically. Other-
wise start x64\ssfpackex300_64.exe from the CD.
By default, installation is to C:\Program Files\OxMetrics5 (or your language-specific
location for program files). You may choose another location for the OxMetrics5 folder, but the
selected folder must hold the Ox tree (by default, Ox would be in installed into
C:\Program Files\OxMetrics5\ox).

3.3 OS X and Linux

First ensure that Ox Professional is installed.
SsfPack Extended is provided as a zip-file archive.
Installation steps:

1. Unzip ssfpack ex 30.zip (or a newer version if available) to the ox/packages folder.
The default packages folder of Ox is:

OS X 10.5 (Leopard), 10.4 (Tiger)

/Applications/OxMetrics5/ox/packages/
Move the ssfpack folder created by extracting the zip file to this ox/packages folder,
to create the ox/packages/ssfpack folder. Your administrative password will be
required to complete this action.
Linux 32-bit, Linux 64-bit
/usr/share/OxMetrics5/ox/packages/
Put the zip file in ox/packages/ and unzip from there, maintaining the folder structure.
This will create the ox/packages/ssfpack folder, and should be done as root or
superuser.

2. Check that there now is a packages/ssfpack folder in your ox folder which holds ssfpack ex.h
(among other files).

The zip file contains the dynamic-link library for several platforms:

ssfpackex.so - Linux 32-bit

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 ssfpackex 64.so - Linux 64-bit

ssfpackex osx.so - OS X

Ox will automatically use the correct version.

4 SsfPack Basic Installation

Pre-requisites

1. First install Ox Console or Ox Professional (see www.doornik.com or www.timberlake.co.uk).

2. Download SsfPack Basic from www.ssfpack.com.

Installation steps:

1. Put ssfpack basic 30.zip (or a newer version if available) in the ox/packages folder,
and unzip from there. The default packages folder of Ox is:

Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000

C:\Program Files\OxMetrics5\ox\packages
Put the zip file in your ox\packages folder and unzip from there, maintaining the folder
structure. This will create the ox/packages/ssfpack folder.
OS X 10.5 (Leopard), 10.4 (Tiger)
/Applications/OxMetrics5/ox/packages/
Move the ssfpack folder created by extracting the zip file to this ox/packages folder,
to create the ox/packages/ssfpack folder. Your administrative password will be
required to complete this action.
Linux 32-bit, Linux 64-bit
/usr/share/OxMetrics5/ox/packages/
Put the zip file in ox/packages/ and unzip from there, maintaining the folder structure.
This will create the ox/packages/ssfpack folder, and should be done as root or
superuser.

2. Check that there now is a ox/packages/ssfpack folder in your ox folder which holds
ssfpack.h (among other files).

The zip file contains the dynamic-link library for several platforms:

ssfpack.dll - Windows 32-bit

ssfpack.so - Linux 32-bit

ssfpack 64.so - Linux 64-bit

ssfpack osx.so - OS X

Ox will automatically use the correct version.

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5 SsfPack folder structure
The OxMetrics folder structure is as follows:

\Program Files\ (default)

OxMetrics5\ Root of OxMetrics 5
ox\ Root of Ox installation
packages\ Ox packages
ssfpack\ SsfPack libraries and headers
code\ SsfPack Basic example Ox code
code_ex\ SsfPack Extended example Ox code
doc\ Koopman, Shephard, Doornik (1999) and
this document.

6 Using SSfPack Extended

Insert the following line:

#include <packages/ssfpack/ssfpack_ex.h>

at the top of any Ox file that uses SsfPack Extended.

Run any of the examples in ox/packages/ssfpack/code ex to try SsfPack Extended, by
loading the Ox file into OxMetrics and running it.
The code ex/ssfsupport.ox program is a good one to start with.
Please note that the 3.0 release of SsfPack Extended supercedes all 3.x beta releases of SsfPack.

7 Using SSfPack Basic

Insert the following line:

#include <packages/ssfpack/ssfpack.h>

at the top of any Ox file that uses SsfPack Basic.

Run any of the examples in ox/packages/ssfpack/code to try SsfPack Basic, by loading
the Ox file into OxMetrics or OxEdit and running it. The code/ssfsupport.ox program is a
good one to start with.
Note that many example programs create graphs. These cannot be displayed when using Ox
Console.
Also note that running programs that call any SsfPack Extended function would give a run-time
error.