SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

STRINGS Specification
MATRIX—END MATRIX 951
The STRINGS specification provides the names of variables that contain short string data
rather than numeric data.
• By default, all variables are assumed to be numeric.
• The variable list specification following STRINGS consists of a list of SPSS variable names
separated by commas. The names must be among those used by SAVE.
MGET Statement: Reading SPSS Matrix Data Files
MGET reads an SPSS matrix-format data file. MGET puts the data it reads into separate matrix
variables. It also names these new variables automatically. The syntax of MGET is as follows:
MGET [ [/] FILE = file reference]
[/TYPE = {COV }]
{CORR }
{MEAN }
{STDDEV}
{N }
{COUNT }
• Since MGET assigns names to the matrices it reads, do not specify matrix names on the
MGET statement.
FILE Specification
FILE designates an SPSS matrix-format data file. (See MATRIX DATA for a discussion of matrix-format
data files.) To designate the working data file (if it is a matrix-format data file),
use an asterisk, or simply omit the FILE specification.
• The file reference can be either a filename enclosed in apostrophes or quotation marks, or a
file handle defined on a FILE HANDLE command that precedes the matrix program.
• The same matrix-format SPSS data file can be read more than once.
• If you omit the FILE specification, the current working data file is used.
• MGET ignores the SPLIT FILE command in SPSS when reading the working data file. It does
honor the split-file groups that were in effect when the matrix-format data file was created.
• The maximum number of split-file groups that can be read is 99.
• The maximum number of cells that can be read is 99.
TYPE Specification
TYPE specifies the rowtype(s) to read from the matrix-format data file.
• By default, records of all rowtypes are read.
• If the matrix-format data file does not contain rows of the requested type, an error occurs.