SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

1688 Appendix A
A session must go through initial, input program, and procedure states to be a complete
session. Since all sessions start in the initial state, you need to be concerned primarily
with what commands you need to define your working data file and to analyze the data.
The following commands define a very minimal session:
GET FILE=DATAIN.
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=ALL.
The GET command defines the working data file and the FREQUENCIES command
reads the data file and analyzes it. Thus, the program goes through the required three
states: initial, input, and procedure.
Typically, a session also goes through the transformation state, but it can be skipped
as shown in the example above and in the diagram in Figure A.1. Consider the following
example:
TITLE ’PLOT FOR COLLEGE SURVEY’.
DATA LIST FILE=TESTDATA
/AGE 1-3 ITEM1 TO ITEM3 5-10.
VARIABLE LABELS ITEM1 ’Opinion on level of defense spending’
ITEM2 ’Opinion on level of welfare spending’
ITEM3 ’Opinion on level of health spending’.
VALUE LABELS ITEM1 TO ITEM3 -1 ’Disagree’ 0 ’No opinion’ 1
’Agree’.
MISSING VALUES AGE(-99,-98) ITEM1 TO ITEM3 (9).
RECODE ITEM1 TO ITEM3 (0=1) (1=0) (2=-1) (9=9) (ELSE=SYSMIS).
RECODE AGE (MISSING=9) (18 THRU HI=1) (LO THRU 18=0) INTO VOTER.
PRINT /$CASENUM 1-2 AGE 4-6 VOTER 8-10.
VALUE LABELS VOTER 0 ’Under 18’ 1 ’18 or over’.
MISSING VALUES VOTER (9).
PRINT FORMATS VOTER (F1.0).
FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=VOTER, ITEM1 TO ITEM3.
The program starts in the initial state, where it processes the TITLE command. It then
moves into the input state upon encountering the DATA LIST command. The program
can then move into either the transformation or procedure state once the DATA LIST
command has been processed.
In this example, the program remains in the transformation state after processing
each of the commands from VARIABLE LABELS through PRINT FORMATS. The
program then moves into the procedure state to process the FREQUENCIES command.
As shown in Figure A.1, the program can repeat the procedure state if it encounters a
second procedure. The program can return to the transformation state if it encounters
additional transformation commands following the first procedure. Finally, in some
sessions the program can return to the input program state when it encounters
commands such as FILE TYPE or MATCH FILES.