SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

• END FILE TYPE signals the end of file definition.
• BEGIN DATA and END DATA indicate that data are inline.
• The output from LIST is identical to the output in Figure C.6.
Defining Complex Files 1709
FILE TYPE GROUPED is most useful when record order varies across cases and when
cases have missing or duplicate records. In the modified data shown in Table C.2, only
case 1 has all three record types. Also, record order varies across cases. For example, the
first record for case 1 is a science record, whereas the first record for cases 2 and 3 is a
reading record.
Table C.2 Modified grouped data file
Student Subject Score
1 S 97
1 R 58
1 M 59
2 R 43
3 R 67
3 M 75
You can use the same FILE TYPE commands as above to read the modified file. As
shown in the output from LIST in Figure C.7, the program assigns missing values to variables
that are missing for a case.
Figure C.7 LIST output for modified GROUPED.DAT file
STUDENT READING MATH SCIENCE
1 58 59 97
2 43 . .
3 67 75 .
By default, the program generates a warning message when a case is missing a defined
record type in a grouped file or when a record is not in the same order as in RECORD
TYPE commands. Thus, four warnings are generated when the commands for the
previous example are used to read the modified GROUPED.DAT file. You can suppress
these warnings if you add the optional specifications MISSING=NOWARN and
ORDERED=NO on your FILE TYPE command.
In the modified GROUPED.DAT file, the case identifier STUDENT appears in the
same column position in each record. When the location of the case identifier varies for
different types of records, you can use the CASE option of the RECORD TYPE command
to specify different column positions for different records. For example, suppose the
case identifier appears in first column position on reading and science records and in column
2 in math records. You could use the following commands to define the data: