Date:         Thu, 1 May 2003 16:56:15 -0400
Reply-To:     Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Richard Ristow <wrristow@mindspring.com>
Subject:      Re: Dynamic Variable Creation
Comments: To: "Richard J. Reeves" <rr223@cornell.edu>
In-Reply-To:  <5.1.0.14.2.20030501122258.033be098@postoffice.mail.cornell .edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 12:30 PM 5/1/2003 -0400, Richard J. Reeves wrote:

>I have a dataset from a server that has visiting history. I am trying
>to create counter variables to track how many times a given user
>visits a given page.  Currently the data is in this format:
>
>id      page
>--      ----
>j2      home.htm
>jj2     index.htm
>jj2     home.htm
>r2      home.htm
>t4      jkl.htm
>t4      report.asp
>t4      test.asp
>
>There are over 1000 pages and over 1000 user ides and both change
>regularly so I would like a way to dynamically code the variable names
>(or labels) so that I know how many times a person visited a given
>page. I tried using some vectors with a double loop but could not
>quite get there.  I am wonder if there is a script solution or of this
>simply can't be done.

To start with, the natural solutions do not create multitudes of
variables. If you want one CASE to count the number of times a given
user visits a page, it's very quick:

AGGREGATE /OUTFILE=*/BREAK=ID PAGE/N_VISITS = N.

You can write a separate file instead of using "OUTFILE=*", of course.

If you really want a bunch of variables, look at CASESTOVARS, which
will create variables dynamically from the data. Here's a response to a
similar query, posted by Karel Asselberghs
<asselberghs@XS4ALL.NL>  Mon, 10 Mar 2003 13:25:15 +0100 ("Re:
Aggregate functions") -- I've changed variable names for your case:

>split file by ID.
>casestovars.
>split file off.

That should (I'm a couple of releases back, and don't have CASESTOVARS)
give you one case per ID, and one variable per page visited.