SPSS® 12.0 Command Syntax Reference

MISSING VALUES
MISSING VALUES {varlist}(value list) [[/]{varlist} ...]
{ALL } {ALL }
Keywords for numeric value lists:
LO, LOWEST, HI, HIGHEST, THRU
Example
MISSING VALUES V1 (8,9) V2 V3 (0) V4 (’X’) V5 TO V9 (’ ’).
Overview
MISSING VALUES declares values for numeric and short string variables as user-missing.
These values can then receive special treatment in data transformations, statistical calculations,
and case selection. By default, user-missing values are treated the same as the systemmissing
values. System-missing values are automatically assigned by the program when no
legal value can be produced, such as when an alphabetical character is encountered in the
data for a numeric variable, or when an illegal calculation, such as division by 0, is requested
in a data transformation.
Basic Specification
The basic specification is a single variable followed by the user-missing value or values in
parentheses. Each specified value for the variable is treated as user-missing for any analysis.
Syntax Rules
• Each variable can have a maximum of three individual user-missing values. A space or
comma must separate each value. For numeric variables, you can also specify a range of
missing values. See “Specifying Ranges of Missing Values” on p. 987.
• The missing-value specification must correspond to the variable type (numeric or string).
• The same values can be declared missing for more than one variable by specifying a
variable list followed by the values in parentheses. Variable lists must have either all
numeric or all string variables.
• Different values can be declared missing for different variables by specifying separate
values for each variable. An optional slash can be used to separate specifications.
• Missing values cannot be assigned to long string variables or to scratch variables.
• Missing values for short string variables must be enclosed in apostrophes or quotation
marks. The value specifications must include any leading or trailing blanks. (See “String
Values in Command Specifications” on p. 7 in Volume I.)
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