SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

READNAMES Subcommand
GET DATA 627
ON Read the first row of the sheet or specified range as variable names. This is the
default. Values that contain invalid characters or do not meet other criteria for
variable names are converted to valid variable names. For information on variable
naming rules, see “Variable Names” on p. 21.
OFF Read the first row of the sheet or specified range as data. SPSS assigns default
variable names and reads all rows as data.
Example
GET DATA /TYPE=XLS
/FILE=’\\hqdev01\public\sales.xls’
/SHEET=name ’June Sales’
/CELLRANGE=range ’A1:C3’
/READNAMES=on.
Subcommands for TYPE=TXT
The VARIABLES subcommand is required and must be the last GET DATA subcommand.
ARRANGEMENT Subcommand
The ARRANGEMENT subcommand specifies the data format.
DELIMITED Spaces, commas, tabs, or other characters are used to separate variables.
The variables are recorded in the same order for each case but not necessarily
in the same column locations. This is the default.
FIXED Each variable is recorded in the same column location for every case.
FIRSTCASE Subcommand
FIRSTCASE specifies the first line (row) to read for the first case of data. This allows you to
bypass information in the first n lines of the file that either don’t contain data or contain data
you don’t want to read. This subcommand applies to both fixed and delimited file formats.
The only specification for this subcommand is an integer greater than zero that indicates
the number of lines to skip. The default is 1.
DELCASE Subcommand
The DELCASE subcommand applies to delimited data (ARRANGEMENT=DELIMITED) only.
LINE Each case is contained on a single line (row). This is the default.
VARIABLES n Each case contains n variables. Multiple cases can be contained on the same
line, and data for one case can span more than one line. A case is defined by
the number of variables.