DELAY

The number of time steps to delay. This value must be a positive integer.

The values to delay. This can be a constant value, a column, a cell range, or an expression evaluating to any of the above. For the format definition of data, see the "Macro Function Parameters" section in the chapter in this guide for your IBM® product.

Description

DELAY returns values in the input data range, delayed by the specified number of time steps. It views each input column as a data series in time. and returns one new column for each input column. Each new column contains the time step-delayed values (delayed by delay number of time steps) of the numbers in the corresponding input column.

The DELAY macro function returns a column with values such that the cell VY[x ] = data[x + delay].

This function is useful in creating patterns from time-series data. To create multiple delays, use the SLIDE_WINDOW macro function.

Examples

TEMP = DELAY(1, COLUMN(1,2,3,4))

Creates a new column named TEMP containing the values 2, 3, and 4 in cells 1-3, respectively.

TEMP = DELAY(2, V1)

Creates a new column named TEMP, where each value is the contents of column V1 delayed by two time steps.

TEMP = DELAY(10, V1:V3)

Creates three new columns named TEMP, VX, and VY. The values in the TEMP column are the contents of column V1 delayed by ten time steps, the values of the VX column are the contents of column V2 delayed by ten time steps, and the values of the VY column are the contents of column V3 delayed by ten time steps.

TEMP = DELAY(1, V1[10:20])

Creates a new column named TEMP, where the first 10 cells contain the values in column V1 delayed by one time step (that is, rows 11-20 of column V1). The other cells in TEMP are empty.

TEMP = DELAY(2, V1[1:5]:V2)

Creates two new columns named TEMP and VX, each with values in rows 1-3 (the other cells are empty). The values in column TEMP are the corresponding rows of column V1 delayed by two time steps, and the values in column VX are the corresponding rows of column V2 delayed by two time steps (that is, rows 3-5 of columns V1 and V2).

Related Functions

Function	Description
LAG	Returns the input columns values lagging by a specified number of time steps
SLIDE_WINDOW	Creates a pattern from a specified window and slides it down to create the next pattern