Read ASCII file with fixed and free data

 

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SPSS AnswerNet: Result 

Solution ID:	 	100000680	
Product:	 	SPSS Base 	
Title:
Fixed and Free Data in the same ASCII data set 
Description:
Q. 
I have data which consist of four records. The first three records 
have been entered in fixed column format. The fourth record is a 
problem, however, because it has been entered in free format. 
Not only is the record in free format, but I sometimes have 
situations whereby a person has a compound first and last name. 
I thought ahead and decided to use a space to delimit the pieces 
of the compound field and to use two spaces to delimit the 
individual compound fields. However I am still having trouble 
getting SPSS to correctly read the data. What can I do short of 
reentering all the data for the fourth record? 
A. 
You can read your data with the DATA LIST command, treating the 
free format record as a single alphanumeric record, then parsing 
the pieces as needed. The key to the properly unpacking the 
compound fields lies in the correct selection of the search 
string on the index function inside the loop (in this case ' '). 

DATA LIST RECORDS 4 / 1 v11 TO V15 11-20 
/ 2 v211 TO V215 11-25 
/ 3 v221 TO V225 21-35 
/ 4 #ALPHA 1-80 (A). 
COMPUTE #I=0. 
VECTOR #AL(5,A20). 
STRING ssn(A15) / fname(A20) / lname(A20) / sex(A1)/ A5(A5). 
LOOP . 
COMPUTE #I=#I+1. 
COMPUTE #X= INDEX(#ALPHA,' '). 
COMPUTE #AL(#I) = UPCASE(SUBSTR(#ALPHA,1,#X-1)). 
COMPUTE #ALPHA=LTRIM(SUBSTR(#ALPHA,#X+1,LENGTH(#ALPHA)-#X-1)). 
END LOOP IF INDEX(#ALPHA,' ')=1. 
COMPUTE ssn = SUBSTR(#AL(1),1,15). 
COMPUTE fname = SUBSTR(#AL(2),1,20). 
COMPUTE lname = SUBSTR(#AL(3),1,20). 
COMPUTE sex = SUBSTR(#AL(4),1,1 ). 
COMPUTE A5 = SUBSTR(#AL(5),1,5 ). 

BEGIN DATA. 
001 1112131415 
002 211212213214215 
221222223224225 
112-456-78928 jonathon pierre van der hickerson M blah 
001 1112131415 
002 211212213214215 
221222223224225 
456-289-15562 mary doe F blahs 
END DATA. 
LIST. 

Here are the results of the LIST command. 
V11: 11 12 13 14 15 211 212 213 214 215 221 222 223 224 225 112-456-78928 
FNAME: JONATHON PIERRE VAN DER HICKERSON M BLAH 
V11: 11 12 13 14 15 211 212 213 214 215 221 222 223 224 225 456-289-15562 
FNAME: MARY DOE F BLAHS 
Number of cases read: 2 Number of cases listed: 2 
Created on: 01/10/2000
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