Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2011 09:22:47 -0500
Reply-To: Art@DrKendall.org
Sender: "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Art Kendall <Art@DrKendall.org>
Organization: Social Research Consultants
Subject: Re: Error : The first word in the line is not recognized as an
SPSS Statistics command.
In-Reply-To: <1322878163402-5043650.post@n5.nabble.com>
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<font size="+1">Removing MACRO would certainly be a great mistake if
SPSS were to do it!<br>
<br>
Certainly any word processor that has autofill in tables, and
rectangular selection of text would do it. WP just happens to be
what I used when PCs came along and I no longer had SED on a
screen connected to a mainframe. (yes SED was so -mid-70s.) WP is
the only word processor I have seen, although I have not checked
in a few years, that has rectangular selection, parses sentences
into parts of speech, and gives standard readability indices.<br>
<br>
Using cut and paste and vertical alignment is pretty much the same
as what macros do</font>. Doing that a time or two gives a pretty
good idea of what macros do. A good starting exercise. Even
someone with David's level of expertise might trade off readability
and speed of QA review and create vertically aligned structure this
way when there were only 4 or 5 such lines needed.<br>
<br>
<soapbox> vertical alignment can often enhance the
readability of syntax analogous to the use of sense lining when
preparing text for oral presentation. E.g., DO space space space IF
helps vertical alignment alignment with ELSE space IF and END space
space IF. <br>
<tt>DO IF<br>
ELSE IF<br>
END IF</tt><br>
I first found this a help when I first had a screen editor with
rectangular selection 1974ish. Works in many computer languages,
FORTRAN, TECO, BASIC, SPSS, SAS, BMDP,etc.<br>
<\soapbox><br>
<br>
when there are only a few vertically aligned lines needed a model of
what a macro would do would be something like this<br>
<br>
typing<br>
Var?Sub1, Var?Sub2,Var?Sub4 Var?Sub8<br>
copy and paste that line<br>
edit replace var? with var1<br>
copy and paste that line<br>
edit replace var? with var2<br>
copy and paste that line<br>
edit replace var? with var3<br>
<pre wrap="">var1Sub1, var1Sub2,var1Sub4 var1Sub8
var2Sub1, var2Sub2,var2Sub4 var2Sub8
var3Sub1, var3Sub2,var3Sub4 var3Sub8
Alternatively
typing the line once and pasting it the needed number of times and then editing vertically works
Var?Sub1, Var?Sub2,Var?Sub4 Var?Sub8
Var?Sub1, Var?Sub2,Var?Sub4 Var?Sub8
Var?Sub1, Var?Sub2,Var?Sub4 Var?Sub8
</pre>
then vertically edit with type over on 1,2,3 in each column<br>
<br>
Art Kendall<br>
Social Research Consultants<br>
<br>
On 12/2/2011 9:09 PM, David Marso wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:1322878163402-5043650.post@n5.nabble.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">OTOH: Code is already written. WP and autofill are so let's see? 20th
century ;-)
If I were to suggest such a thing I would recommend a freebie such as Open
Office or NeoOffice (Mac).
Looks like OP has at least a modicum grasp of something resembling
programming so maybe MACRO might be a good investment. Some pythonistas may
disagree but that is another whole debate.
I don't see SPSS removing MACRO from SPSS in the forseeable future. That
would be clearly irresponsible and outright stupid considering the 2+
decades of legacy code in numerous institutions to say nothing of the
relative simplicity of MACRO in comparison to languages such as Python, VB,
C# etc.
Python )etc) certainly have an elegance and superior power to MACRO but most
of the time that extra power is unnecessary and to continue Art's comment
akin to taking out a fly on the all with a chainsaw when a B.B. gun or a
rubber band in the hands of an expert (or even an attentive novice) is quite
adequate. Python people: Please initiate any ensuing "flame wars" in a
separate thread .
Art Kendall wrote
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
However, unless one were going to have similar tasks
over time using macros for this might be using a sledge hammer on
a tack.
Using cut-and-paste and vertical alignment&nbsp; or using autofill
in a
a word processor like WordPerfect might be faster than trying to
learn macros. YMMV.
Art
On 12/2/2011 2:23 PM, David Marso wrote:
You are making it *WAY TOO COMPLICATED*!!!
SPSS Macro knows *NOTHING* of "arrays" much or less anything of array
indexes.
MACRO is simply a string parser with minimal functionality beyond !HEAD,
!TAIL, !CONCAT, !SUBSTR.
It flunked *MATH* in grade school and was invented when wheels were square
and computers only had ones (zero had yet to be discovered). However in
the right hands can build a primitive rocket ship from bear skins and
flint
shards.
You *CAN NOT* extend MACRO with constructs such as: !ddim = len(!dlist)
numeric or !ilist(!j).
It is also quite innocent of *most* things common to most "languages".
The following achieves what I infer you to be attempting.
DEFINE !myvars( DLIST !ENCLOSE("[","]")
/ ILIST !ENCLOSE("[","]") ).
!DO !ddim !IN (!DLIST) !DO !idim !IN (!ILIST)
COMPUTE !CONCAT('var',!ddim , 'sub', !idim) =0.
!DOEND !DOEND
!ENDDEFINE.
SET MPRINT ON.
!myvars dlist = [1 2 3 4 5] ilist = [1 2 4 8 9] .
EXECUTE.
!myvars dlist = [1 2 3 4 5] ilist = [1 2 4 8 9] .
COMPUTE var1sub1 =0.
COMPUTE var1sub2 =0.
COMPUTE var1sub4 =0.
COMPUTE var1sub8 =0.
COMPUTE var1sub9 =0.
COMPUTE var2sub1 =0.
....
COMPUTE var5sub1 =0.
COMPUTE var5sub2 =0.
COMPUTE var5sub4 =0.
COMPUTE var5sub8 =0.
COMPUTE var5sub9 =0.
anitha.un wrote
Welll...thank you sooo much. I appreciate your help on this. And also i
was trying to do the same using arrays, below is the syntax . My output
should create variables like var1sub1, var1sub2. var1sub4, var1sub8
var1sub9, var2sub1, var2sub2,var2sub4, var2sub8, var2sub9.
Define !myvars().
!dlist = [1 2 3 4 5].
!ilist = [1 2 4 8 9].
!ddim = len(!dlist) numeric.
!idim = len(!ilist) numeric.
!do !i = 1 !to !ddim.
!LET !mydvar = !CONCAT('var',!dlist(!i)).
!do !j = 1 !to !idim.
!LET !myivar = !CONCAT('sub',!ilist(!j)).
!myfvar= !CONCAT(!mydvar,!myivar).
COMPUTE !myfvar=0.
!DOEND.
!DOEND.
!ENDDEFINE.
myvars.
EXECUTE.
Can you help me out to trouble shoot the error i got : The first word in
the line is not recognized as an SPSS Statistics command.This command not
executed. I am still a beginner in spss macros, so i feel there may be a
small mistake.
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
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