Using the FORFILES command

Post date: Sep 12, 2012 7:42:55 PM

ForFiles command in Matrix Algebra

• • Lets you repeat a command for a series of files that are similarly named, as in "samplk1", "samplk2", "samplk3"

  • Syntax is ->forfiles <filemask> <command with "$$" used to stand in for file name>

  • For example, if you have unpacked the 'sampson' dataset so that you have a bunch of files on disk with names like "samplk1", "samplk2", and "samplk3" and want to compute and store the average value of each row for each matrix, you could type:

  • ->forfiles samp* $$-avg = wavg($$ row)

  • this will create a series of new files named "samplk1-avg", "samplk2-avg", "samplk3-avg", etc.

  • Use * as a wildcard for one or more letters. Use ? for a single letter. For example, if you have files called samplk1, samplk2 and samplkcombined, using samplk* will find samplk1 and samplk2, but also samplkcombined. In contrast using samplk? will only fine samplk1 and samplk2

  • If you are using UCINET 6.578 or later, you can combine forfiles with the Run command to execute a script for each file. For example, we could create a text file called doit.txt containing these commands:

  • h = holes($$)

  • c = centrality($$)

  • dsp corr(h c)

  • and then execute the script for all files that begin with "samplk":

  • ->forfiles samplk* doit.txt $$

  • and it will execute doit.txt for samplk1, samplk2 and samplk3