Date:         Wed, 28 May 2003 07:53:29 -0500
Reply-To:     "Peck, Jon" <peck@spss.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Peck, Jon" <peck@spss.com>
Subject:      Re: Deleting Variables
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

One clarification: if you do something like drop the variable(s) and run a procedure, there is no extra data pass.  For example

save outfile='e:\temp\fred.sav' /drop= v1.
freq v2.

This requires only the data pass that would have been done for the Frequencies procedure.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Ristow [mailto:wrristow@mindspring.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 10:35 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] Deleting Variables


[RE-SENT, WITH REVISIONS MISSED THE FIRST TIME]
At 01:06 PM 5/27/2003 -0400, Mapp, Delicia wrote:

>Once I have calculated the variable 'totmin', I no longer need the
>variable 'min'.  Is there a way in which I can delete this variable
>within my code?

Yes, but it requires rereading the SPSS working file as a whole; that
is, it is fairly slow. Any SAVE, XSAVE, GET FILE, ADD FILES, or MATCH
FILES statement can take a "DROP=" clause to list variables be omitted
from the loaded or saved file. The simplest way to drop a variable from
the current working file is

ADD FILES/FILE=*/DROP=min.

(You can drop any number of variables at once; and, if you're dropping
more than one, it's much faster if you do them all at once.)