The Command Processor

Improved Command Processor
 Eases Repetitive Transfers

The Stat/Transfer menu interface is great for occasional use or for fine- tuning the characteristics of your variables, but what if you need to move the same thirty files each week?  For problems like this and for those users who just can’t stand mice and menus, Stat/Transfer Version 9 provides a command processor.

This text-mode program will  accept your commands in simple copy-like syntax.  For instance:

copy in.sd2 out.sav

will convert the SAS file, in.sd2 , to an SPSS file, out.sav.

You can type such commands directly at the command processor’s prompt, or you can store them in a text file and execute them later.  Such deferred execution can be done either from the command processor’s prompt:

ex myfile

from the DOS (Windows) or operating system (MAC) command line:

st myfile.stc

or, for Windows, by simply double-clicking on the command file name from the Windows Explorer.

Further, for quick transfers, you can enter just the name of the program and the name of the files from the operating system prompt. For instance:

st in.sd2   out.sav

will transfer a SAS file directly to an SPSS file, right from the operating system command line.

The command processor includes the ability to move a whole group of files using wildcards. For instance, the command:

st in\*.sd2   out\*.dta

will convert an entire directory of SAS files to Stata format and write the converted files to another directory.

It also gives you the ability to combine multiple input files into a single output file.

Under Windows or OS X, the command processor will execute other programs and operating system commands if you precede their name with DOS (or with the word `shell”) or with an exclamation point (!).  You can therefore call programs such as Pkzip from your Stat/Transfer command files. For instance, the following sequence of commands will extract a Stata file from a zip file, convert it to Access file and then delete the extracted file:

!pkunzip data.zip large.dta
!copy large.dta  out.mdb
!del large.dta

The command processor provides the ability to execute a ‘where’ command for record selection, a ’keep’ or ‘drop’ command for selecting variables  and a variety of commands for specifying transfer options and the information that is necessary to connect to ODBC databases.

On Windows platforms, to make ODBC connections even easier, the command processor provides the facilities to allow you to be prompted once for connection information, and then to save a  returned ODBC connection string to disk in encrypted form so that it can be recalled for completely automatic and ‘promptless’ re-connections to your database.

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