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The Structure of JudgeIt Command Files

Command files usually include these three types of commands:

1. Commands to read in data (and modify it if necessary),
2. The PRELIM command, used to run a preliminary analysis estimating LAMBDA and SIGMA (required for later analysis procedures), and
3. Commands to perform analyses.

You will need to run the preliminary analysis to estimate LAMBDA and SIGMA before running most of the analysis procedures. Do this by reading in your data, just as you do for the analysis procedures, and issuing a PRELIM; command. Setting up a single command file with all of the commands needed--those to read in your data, the PRELIM command, and the commands to perform analysis--usually is most convenient. The first time you run this command file, PRELIM will estimate LAMBDA and SIGMA, and all the analysis procedures will be skipped (since LAMBDA and SIGMA had not been set). The PRELIM command will continue to estimate LAMBDA and SIGMA every time you run the command file, and continue to cause the other procedures to be skipped, until you set these values by changing the PRELIM command. Thus, after running the command file once, you can set LAMBDA and SIGMA by editing the PRELIM command and adding information on LAMBDA and SIGMA. Then, when you run the same command file a second time, the preliminary analysis will be skipped automatically, and the analysis procedures will run. All of this can be automated with the PRELIM AUTOMATE command.