Date:         Mon, 7 Oct 2002 20:18:20 -0400
Reply-To:     Raynald Levesque <rlevesque@videotron.ca>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Raynald Levesque <rlevesque@videotron.ca>
Subject:      Re: Changing letter case and merging files
In-Reply-To:  <661FA176BD6D144F91CE5DDCA6A9260215CF5C@postoffice.waterford.org>
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Hi

1) Use COMPUTE strname=LOWER(strname).
where strname is the name of your string variable.

2)There will be problems if both files have many records for a given
first name (fname), last name (lname) and school

Assuming
filea.sav has many records with the same fname, lname and school
fileb.sav has only ONE record per fname, lname and school

Do as follows:
1. Sort both files by fname, lname and school
2. MATCH FILES FILE='c:\filea.sav'
        /TABLE='c:\fileb.sav'
        /BY=fname lname school.

In the above command, replace "c:\" by the applicable path.

HTH

Raynald Levesque rlevesque@videotron.ca
Visit my SPSS Pages http://pages.infinit.net/rlevesqu/index.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
Geoff Matthews
Sent: October 7, 2002 1:15 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Changing letter case and merging files


I have a few questions:

1) I am working with two data files that have matching variables.  One
of the files has the variables all in caps (string variable, of course),
I'd like to change this to all lower-case.  Any suggestions?

2) I also want to merge these two files, and here's where a real problem
arises.  I do not have a unique identifier for each case (students, in
this instance).  So, I want to match students on first name, last name
and school.  All attempts thus far have been hung up on the second case,
with the claim that the file is not in non-descending order.  I've
repeatedly tried to change this.  Case sensitivity may be part of the
problem (thus, question #1), but in case it isn't, any other
suggestions?

Thank-you,

Geoff Matthews
Data Analyst
Waterford Institute
801-576-4924
geoff.matthews@waterford.org
ICQ #166775292