Date:         Wed, 1 Dec 2004 08:01:05 -0800
Reply-To:     Neerav <neerav_monga@CAMH.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Neerav <neerav_monga@CAMH.NET>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: PROC CONVERT spss. Too long variable names from SPSS to SAS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Anders,
I have also had the same problem converting SPSS to SAS with the
variable names being truncated. The only solution I could find is by
renaming the variables manually to names 8 characters long, then
importing it and renaming it into SAS. I believe that SPSS
automatically truncates the variable names to 8 characters when
creating portable files, its something to check out and thats where the
problem is.

Also, you should make sure your SPSS datafile does not have any 'user
defined' missing values (e.g. -1=N/A) as SAS will read all missing
values as system missing "." and you will lose those definitions. Hope
this helps.

Neerav