Survival Kit, software/Tips and Tricks

Some additional information you might find useful.

• Copying and modifying existing parameter files is a good idea. It saves a lot of time compared to creating new parameter file for each run.

• Do not forget about the possibility to comment out lines with /* and */ in the parameter files instead of deleting keywords. Again: It saves time in case they are needed later on.

• After any modification of the source code or the parameter files (especially if you have more versions in separate folders) check that the version you modified and the one you are running is the same. In case you keep getting the same results even after modifications, there is a reason to be suspicious.

• In case you are especially curious about results of a certain effect it is a good idea to put it as the first in the MODEL statement of COX or WEIBULL. In this case these will be displayed at the beginning of the results file and not only after many lines of other (less interesting) results. In other words: You don’t have to scroll as much.

• In case you are a Windows user you could use .txt extension for the file names, since this is already associated with your favorite text editor.

• If your operating system is not case sensitive you may adopt the convention to write the Survival Kit keywords in capitals and your additions in lower case. This way you can more easily distinguish between them. This approach is not mandatory however. For example compare:

CLASS effect1 effect2; with class effect1 effect2; and CLASS EFFECT1 EFFECT2;

"CLASS" is a keyword in the Survival Kit, "effect1" and "effect2" are covariates created by the user.

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