Automated Crossdating with the Dendrochronology Program Cofecha

The widely used open-access COFECHA program requires manual keyboard input to crossmatch an undated tree-ring series with a dated master series. The COFECHA program, like its commercial alternatives, has no option to execute a sequence of runs with the exclusive input from a file. The user trying to crossmatch a set of undated tree-ring series with a large regional set of dated series faces a cumbersome task: the user must manually repeat the input for each new run with an individual undated series even though the regional set of dated master series is identical to that of the previous run. Unlike its commercial counterparts, the COFECHA program lends itself to running from an external script file. The most convenient script is a Windows AutoHotkey script. Two example scripts are available on https://github.com/mathgeol/cros25. Using a text editor, the regional set of dated series file names is input only once, and it is used in all the following automated runs with a new undated series.