*(Q)I have an SPSS syntax question, given the following variable VAR1 . . . 10/5/2001 . 10/3/2001 . . I would like to compute (in this case) 2 new constant variables containing the 'non-zero' dates 10/5/2001 and 10/3/2001. In a more general case how would one go about setting up constant date variables from VAR1 when the number of 'non-zero' dates in VAR1 is unknown? *(A) Posted to SPSSX-L on 2001/10/05 by rlevesque@videotron.ca. DATA LIST LIST /VAR1(ADATE). BEGIN DATA . . . 10/5/2001 . 10/3/2001 . . END DATA. LIST. SAVE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\mydata.sav'. FORMATS var1(F14.2). STRING cst(A8) . DO IF $CASENUM=1. + COMPUTE idx=~MISSING(var1). + DO IF ~MISSING(var1). + COMPUTE cst=CONCAT('c',LTRIM(STRING(idx,F7.0))). + WRITE OUTFILE 'c:\\temp\\syntax.sps' /"COMPUTE ",cst,"=",var1,"." /"FORMATS ",cst,"(ADATE11).". + END IF. ELSE IF ~MISSING(var1). + COMPUTE idx=LAG(idx)+1. + COMPUTE cst=CONCAT('c',LTRIM(STRING(idx,F7.0))). + WRITE OUTFILE 'c:\\temp\\syntax.sps' /"COMPUTE ",cst,"=",var1,"." /"FORMATS ",cst,"(ADATE11).". ELSE. + COMPUTE idx=LAG(idx). END IF. EXECUTE. GET FILE='c:\\temp\\mydata.sav'. INCLUDE FILE='c:\\temp\\syntax.sps'. VARIABLE WIDTH ALL(10). EXECUTE.