Date:         Fri, 22 Sep 2006 08:14:46 +0530
Reply-To:     Manmit Shrimali <MShrimali@marketrx.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Manmit Shrimali <MShrimali@marketrx.com>
Subject:      Re: stuggling with strings
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hello Carol,

Just a note that sometimes using select if function under temp does not
work and so with count function. Using autorecode is also a safe method
along with reducing the length of string variable and then declare the
missing. For e.g

Var format (a8) * This will reduce the variable to short string.
Missing values varname (missing value)

Regards,

Manmit




-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Statisticsdoc
Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 6:23 AM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: stuggling with strings

Stephen Brand
www.statisticsdoc.com

Carol,

As soon as I sent my previous message, I realized that you were asking
about
long strings, which are a different animal, as you say.  My example
applies
to names of 8 characters or less. My apologies.

Since you cannot declare a missing value for long strings, another
approach
would be to run your frequencies procedure after a temporary select if.

temp.
select if (lname gt '      ' ).
freq var lname.

HTH,

Stephen Brand

For personalized and professional consultation in statistics and
research
design, visit
www.statisticsdoc.com


-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
Parise, Carol A.
Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 7:56 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: stuggling with strings


Hi all,

We received a file that originated in Excel that contains a bunch of
long
string variables which means declaring missing values is not gonna
happen. I
didn't think this would be a problem but SPSS is reading blanks as
values
rather than reading these blanks as system missing which screws up the
frequency computations.

Anyone know why this is going on and what the workaround is?



Thanks for your insights.
Carol