SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

Using the Macro Facility 1723
• In Figure D.8, the syntax for declaring keyword arguments follows the name of the
macro in DEFINE.
• !TOKENS(1) specifies that the value of an argument is a string following the name of
the argument in the macro call. Thus the first macro call specifies CLASS as the value
of BREAKVR, MEAN as the value of FUNC, and ABSENT as the value of INVAR.
• !CMDEND indicates that the value for FILE is the remaining text in the macro call
(SCHOOL.SAV).
• TEMP is an optional argument that names an intermediate file to contain the summary
statistics. Since TEMP is not assigned a value in the macro call, summary statistics are
written to the default intermediate file (TOTALS.SAV).
• In the body of the macro, GET FILE opens SCHOOL.SAV.
• SORT CASES sorts the file by CLASS.
• AGGREGATE computes the mean number of absences for each class. The name of the
variable containing the means (MEAN@) is constructed using the !CONCAT function,
which concatenates the value of FUNC and the @ symbol.
• MATCH FILES appends the means to student records.
• COMPUTE calculates the deviation from the classroom mean for each student (variable
DIFF).
• LIST displays the deviation scores, as shown in Figure D.9. For example, John D., who
was absent 12 times, had 6.75 more absences than the average student in classroom
102. Rich H., who was absent 4 times, had 1.25 fewer absences than the average student
in classroom 102.
• The second macro call and remaining commands in Figure D.8 generate regional sales
percentages for the 1989 sales data. As shown in Figure D.9, percentages are identical
to those displayed in the bottom half of Figure D.6.
Figure D.9 Student absences and 1989 sales percentages
CLASS STUDENT ABSENT MEAN@ DIFF
101 BARRY G 3 3.50 -.50
101 JENNI W 1 3.50 -2.50
101 ED F 2 3.50 -1.50
101 JOHN 0 8 3.50 4.50
102 PAUL Y 2 5.25 -3.25
102 AMY G 3 5.25 -2.25
102 JOHN D 12 5.25 6.75
102 RICH H 4 5.25 -1.25
YEAR REGION SALESPER SALES SUM@ PCT
1989 BATON ROUGE GRAU 320 1459.00 22.00
1989 BATON ROUGE SMITH 800 1459.00 55.00
1989 BATON ROUGE RODRIGUEZ 339 1459.00 23.00
1989 CHICAGO JONES 300 1439.00 21.00
1989 CHICAGO STEEL 899 1439.00 62.00
1989 CHICAGO GREGORY 240 1439.00 17.00