I forgot to mention that if you use 3dTstat (or other 3d* programs) to generate a 1D file in place of a dataset, the top of the file will have some comments containing an XML description of the file. If you DON'T want these comment lines (which start with the '#' character), you can get rid of them by writing to stdout ('-prefix -') and redirecting the output to the desired file, as in

3dTstat -mean -stdev -prefix - fred.1D'[3..8]{5..9}' > jed.1D

Then the output file will be "pure" -- contain only numbers; in the example, 2 columns, the first being the mean of the numbers in columns #3..8 and the second being their standard deviation. AFNI programs won't care about the '#' comment lines, and will just skip over them. But if you are taking the .1D files into something else (Matlab? Excel?), then you probably don't want the commentary.

Another obscure feature: If you put a single ' character at the end of a .1D filestring THAT IS BEING INPUT AS A DATASET TO A 3d* PROGRAM, then the system will transpose the file on input. You could do this using the 1dtranspose program -- this method is just a shortcut. This transposition is done BEFORE any row/column selectors are applied, so the role of the row/column selectors is reversed with respect to the actual data file. Using this notation, the above example would become

3dTstat -mean -stdev -prefix - fred.1D'[3..8]{5..9}'\' > tjed.1D

which would presumably have very different outputs than the previous command. Note also that the final ' character had to be "escaped" using a backslash.

This "final ' means transpose input file" method does NOT apply to .1D files input to 1d* programs, or as .1D files in places that expect such things (e.g., 3dDeconvolve's -stim_file option). It only applies when a .1D file is being input in a place that expects a 3D dataset instead. For example, you CANNOT do something like

1dplot fred.1D\'

Instead, you'd have to do

1dtranspose fred.1D | 1dplot -stdin

*OR*

1dtranspose fred.1d > tfred.1D
1dplot tfred.1D
rm -f tfred.1D

Enough with the obscurities -- back to my plans for galactic conquest and subjugation!