Convert spss code to r how to#

Sorry for the previous comment! My phone's fault: my phone was loading only part of the page. No explanation is given about what you are writing in the syntax, such as the '(f1)' or '(f6.3)'. if you're having trouble with conversions, our SPSS Clone Variables Tool is a better option and doesn't throw any dumb and useless warnings -)įrankly, I am disappointed by this tutorial. In fact, the syntax does work perfectly because c1 to c4 are identical to s1 to s4 after running everything. I think this warning was added to recent SPSS versions as I don't remember seeing it when I wrote the article.īut note that it's a warning - not an error. By Ruben Geert van den Berg on January 19th, 2020.is not working as s1.s4 and c1.c4 differ in length Recode s1 to s4 (else = copy) into c1 to c4. Report this adTHIS TUTORIAL HAS 14 COMMENTS: Copy and Convert Several String Variables Those are mainly STRING, RECODE, DO REPEAT and IF. This may sound daunting but it's perfectly doable if we use the right combination of commands. As these are at least suspicious, we'll call those conversion failures. Precisely, we'll flag non empty string values that are system missing after the conversion. compare the original to the converted variables.However, readers who struggle their way through will learn a very efficient solution that works for many other situations too. Solution 2: Copy String Variables Before Conversion Since we can't undo the operation, let's close our data without saving and reopen it. However, the other 3 variables contain system missings so we need to find out why. Since we've 480 cases in our data, we're done for s1. Which is the format of our string values. This is why we set the correct f format: f6.3 means 6 characters including the decimal separator and 3 decimal places as in 12.345. will also work but the decimal places for s4 won't be visible. *Close data without saving and reopen before proceeding. If we don't have any system missing values, we're done. The syntax below converts all string variables in one go. It allows us to convert many variables with a single line of syntax. For SPSS 15 or below, use the NUMBER function. The fastest way to convert string variables into numeric ones is with the ALTER TYPE command. Let's speed things up by using some handy syntax. We'll do just that in a minute.Īlthough safe, I still think this method is too much work, especially for multiple variables. In our first example, the frequency table already suggested we must remove the “a” from all values before converting the variable. If N is lower than the number of non empty string values (frequencies before conversion), then something may be wrong. inspected N in a descriptive statistics after the conversion.inspected frequency tables: how many non empty values do we have before the conversion?.Right, so how can we perform the conversion safely? Well, we just And we usually won't notice this problem because we don't get any warning or error. Apparently, 15 values failed to convert -probably not what we want. We have 459 valid values (non empty cells).Īfter converting our variable to numeric, we ran some descriptives. We probably want these to be converted into numbers. Note that some values in our string variable have been flagged with “a”. That is, 15 values failed to convert and we've no clue why. *Now manually convert s3 to numeric under variable view. *Set empty string as user missing value for s3. convert s3 to numeric in variable view.set empty cells as user missing values for s3.Well, let's do it rather than read about it. it doesn't generate any syntax: there's no Paste button and nothing's appended to my journal file.I can't apply it to many variables at once, so it may take way more effort than necessary.Now, I never use this method myself because

SPSS Strings to Numeric - Wrong Wayįirst off, you can convert a string into a numeric variable in variable view as shown below. Don't believe me? I'll demonstrate the problem -and the solution- on convert-strings.sav, part of which is shown below. This can mess up your data without you being aware of it. However, there's a huge pitfall that few people are aware of: string values that can't be converted into numbers result in system missing values without SPSS throwing any error or warning.

Convert spss code to r how to#

How to Convert String Variables into Numeric Ones? report this ad By Ruben Geert van den Berg under BasicsĬonverting an SPSS string variable into a numeric one is simple.