Re: re changing variable types

[Ben Pfaff]

Maybe you need to add EXECUTE. on a line by itself afterward.
Otherwise, perhaps you should show us a bit of your string data?
Maybe it contains some character that makes it look non-numeric,
so that the conversion from string to number fails and always
yields system-missing.

Debora Randall <address@hidden> writes:

> Thanks so much for responding.  I tried what you said and it creates a new
> variable, but none of my data gets transferred over to it.
>
> Am I missing something?
>
> On 16 Feb 2011, at 20:04, Ben Pfaff wrote:
>
>     Debora Randall <address@hidden> writes:
>
>         I am working on 0.7.5 PSPP version under X11 on a Mac OS 10.6.3.
>
>         I have mistakenly encoded 6 of my variable types as string
>    
>         instead of numeric.  When I go to change the variable to
>    
>         numeric, I lose my data.  I need to be able to sum the
>    
>         variables, and it won't do that in string.
>
>     I think you should be able to fix this with RECODE:
>            RECODE oldvar (CONVERT) INTO newvar.
>     --
>     Ben Pfaff
>     http://benpfaff.org
>

-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org