SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

Subcommand Order
• VARIABLES must be specified first.
• INTO must immediately follow VARIABLES.
Syntax Rules
AUTORECODE 163
A variable cannot be recoded into itself. More generally, target variable names cannot duplicate
any variable names already in the working file.
Operations
• The values of each variable to be recoded are sorted and then assigned numeric values.
By default, the values are assigned in ascending order: 1 is assigned to the lowest nonmissing
value of the original variable, 2 to the second-lowest nonmissing value, and so
on for each value of the original variable.
• Values of the original variables are unchanged.
• Missing values are recoded into values higher than any nonmissing values, with their
order preserved. For example, if the original variable has 10 nonmissing values, the first
missing value is recoded as 11 and retains its user-missing status. System-missing values
remain system-missing.
• AUTORECODE does not sort the cases in the working file. As a result, the consecutive
numbers assigned to the target variables may not be in order in the file.
• Target variables are assigned the same variable labels as the original source variables. To
change the variable labels, use the VARIABLE LABELS command after AUTORECODE.
• Value labels are automatically generated for each value of the target variables. If the original
value had a label, that label is used for the corresponding new value. If the original
value did not have a label, the old value itself is used as the value label for the new value.
The defined print format of the old value is used to create the new value label.
• AUTORECODE ignores SPLIT FILE specifications. However, any SELECT IF specifications
are in effect for AUTORECODE.