=========================================================================
Date:         Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:37:46 -0500
Reply-To:     "Oliver, Richard" <roliver@SPSS.COM>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Oliver, Richard" <roliver@SPSS.COM>
Subject:      Re: Recode question
Comments: To: emaguin <emaguin@buffalo.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

I think the problem is the sometimes confusing behavior of MISSING VALUES, which always takes effect immediately, whereas RECODE doesn't execute until the next command that reads the data. This is one of those rare instances where you may need an EXECUTE command.

If your code is currently something like:

missing values somevar (99).
recode somevar (value=value)...(missing=9).
missing values somevar (9).
frequencies variables=somevar.

That is really no different than:

missing values somevar (9, 99).
recode...
frequencies...

because the MISSING VALUES command that sets 9 to missing takes effect before the preceding RECODE is executed, and I think the RECODE specification of MISSING=9 may be problematic if 9 is already considered user-missing.

Try putting an EXECUTE between the RECODE and the second MISSING VALUES command, as in:

missing values somevar (99).
recode somevar (value=value)...(missing=9).
execute.
missing values somevar (9).
frequencies variables=somevar.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of emaguin
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 2:01 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Recode question

All,

I think something has been missed the replies to my question.

Going into the recode 99 was declared to be user missing as the frequency listing shows. The recode statement ... (missing=9) should have recoded any user or system missing values to 9. When you look at what comes out, you see that one case has a value of 9, which would be the case with a sysmis value going in, and 19 cases have a value of 99. The sysmis part worked as documented. My contention is that those 19 cases, because they were user missing going in should have been changed to 9 coming out but they weren't.
It is these 19 cases that I interested in.

I also realize I also did a poor job in making clear what I did because I left out a missing values statement wherein I declared that 9 was user missing and which was positioned after the recode statement and before the frequencies statement.