CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csvspss
Alexander Talavari
Alexander Talavari

Reputation: 418

Nested Data Breakdown in CSV to SPSS

I am new to the SPSS platform and i got a complicated dataset to work with in SPSS.

The data look like this

header1|header2|header3|{header4_a - header4_b - header4_c} |{header5_a - header5_b - header5_c} |{header6_a - header6_b - header6_c} 
1|some-text-can be here| 2 |{ Alex - John,Doe - 20}|{ Maria - Maria,Doe - 300}
2|some-other text| 1 |{ Mike- Mike,Doe - 400}

I would love some guidance how to open this file so i can work on each header4_a header4_b etc separately.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 56

Answers (1)

eli-k
eli-k

Reputation: 11360

I suggest you read the file using only the pipes as delimiters. Headers 4a-4c will be read into a single variable (the same with 5a-5c) which will be easy to separate into 3 variables as you described.

Use syntax along these lines:

*first creating some fake data to experiment on.
data list list/header4(a30).
begin data
"{Alex - John,Doe - 5005}"
"{ Maria - Maria,Doe - 300}"
end data.

* now cleaning and dividing `header4`.
string header4_a header4_b header4_c (a20).

compute header4=replace(replace(header4,"{",""),"}","").

compute header4_a=char.substr(header4,1,char.index(header4,"-")-1).
compute header4_b=char.substr(header4,char.index(header4,"-")+1).
compute header4_c=char.substr(header4_b,char.index(header4_b,"-")+1).
compute header4_b=char.substr(header4_b,1,char.index(header4_b,"-")-1).
exe.

Upvotes: 1

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