Searching and Coding with COMBO
COMBO is a command that runs from the Commands window in CLAN. It is a very flexible tool that can be used for a variety of purposes. Below we will go through five ways of using COMBO.
1) Searching for strings using COMBO
1 Open the Commands window
2 Enter COMBO (the name of the command you want to run)
3 Press the spacebar and add +s.
4 Enter the search string you’re interested in immediately after +s, e.g. +sshoe if you want to search for the word ‘shoe’
5 Use ‘File in’ to specifiy the .cha file (or files) on which you want to perform the command
6 Save the output file in the same folder as the media file. You’ll now be able to play the bullets.
Searching for complex strings
A search string can be a single word, but it can also be a complex string composed of several words and special symbols. The most typical symbols and their meanings are:
Meaning = Symbol
Immediately FOLLOWED by = ^
Inclusive OR = +
Logical NOT = !
‘Wildcard’ = *
7 Say you want to search for the word ‘fanatic’ used with the premodifier ‘shoe’. Type the following in the Commands window (and remember to add ‘file in’): combo +sshoe^fanatic @
This will return hits of ‘shoe fanatic’ (but not just ‘fanatic’).
8 Save the output file in the same folder as the media file. You’ll now be able to play the bullets.
2) COMBO search on the basis of pre-established lists
1 Open a new file in CLAN
2 Type the words you want to search for, one word per line.
3 Save the file as a .cut file, e.g. words.cut, in the CLAN library
4 Open the Commands window
5 Build the name of your .cut file into a COMBO search combo +s@words.cut @
6 Save the output file in the same folder as the media file. You’ll now be able to play the bullets.
3) Adding codes with COMBO
Adding codes with COMBO requires two .cut files:
1 A file with the strings/words you want to add codes to
2 A file that contains the coding command
3 The first .cut file is produced as described in section 2) above, points 1.-3.
4 To produce the second .cut file, open a new file in CLAN, and type a line similar to this:
“@words.cut ” “$SHOEFAN:” “%cod:”
The first part (“@words.cut”) specifies the search string. Note: the .cut file can be made part of a complex string, using the symbols in 1).
The second part (“$SHOEFAN:”) specifies the code that will be inserted in the transcript for each hit
The third part (“%cod:”) specifies the name of the dependent tier which the code will be inserted on. If the tier is not in the original .cha file, it will be added automatically
5 Save the file as a .cut file, e.g. codingshoe.cut, in the CLAN library
6 Now you’re ready to run the actual command. It could look like this: combo +s”@codingshoe.cut” +d4 @
+d4 tells CLAN to add codes and tiers to the data file if a string match is found
7 Save the file in the same folder as the media file as QuestionTimeCoded.cha (or something similar). You’ll now be able to play the bullets.
4) Cross-tier COMBO
By default, COMBO will only search main tiers. However, you may specify additional tiers to be searched, for instance coding tiers like %cod: introduced above.
1 To search for a string across main tiers and dependent tiers, include the switch +t immediately followed by the name of the independent tier type, e.g. t%cod: Try the following command on the file generated in section 3). combo +s$SHOEFAN* +t%cod: @
2 Save the output file in the same folder as the media file. You’ll now be able to play the bullets.
3 If you want your hits to be presented with more context, you can specify the size of the ‘window’ surrounding the hit in the output text by using the switches +w and –w. The following version of the command will give you 4 utterances before (-w4) and 4 utterances after (+w4) the actual hit: combo +s$SHOEFAN* +t%cod: +w4 –w4 @
5) Limiting your search with COMBO
Combo allows you to limit your search to particular speakers. That is, you can tell the program/command only to look for strings in specifically designated tiers, for instance all tiers belonging to a particular speaker, e.g. *ROS.
1 To run a limited search you use the +t switch to specify the name of the tiers which the program should focus on in the search, e.g. combo +t*ROS +sshoe @
This command returns hits every time the word ‘shoe’ appears in a tier attributed to the speaker ROS.