SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

Appendix D
Using the Macro Facility
A macro is a set of commands that generates customized command syntax. Using
macros can reduce the time and effort needed to perform complex and repetitive data
analysis tasks.
Macros have two parts: a macro definition, which indicates the beginning and end
of the macro and gives a name to the macro, and a macro body, which contains regular
commands or macro commands that build command syntax. When a macro is invoked
by the macro call, syntax is generated in a process called macro expansion. Then the
generated syntax is executed as part of the normal command sequence.
This chapter shows how to construct macros that perform three data analysis tasks. In
the first example, macros facilitate a file-matching task. In Example 2, macros automate
a specialized statistical operation (testing a sample correlation coefficient against a nonzero
population correlation coefficient). Macros in Example 3 generate random data. As
shown in Table D.1, each example demonstrates various features of the macro facility.
For information on specific macro commands, see the DEFINE command.
Table D.1 Macro features
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3
Macro argument
Keyword x x x
Default values x x
None x x
String manipulation x
Looping
x
Index x x
List processing x
Direct assignment x x
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