RE: Import / Export Functions and other features missing for academic and office use in urban planning

[Marshall DeBerry]

Hi Ben,
   I generally have used the File Type Nested  command or the Input Program
command to utilize REREAD's or DO IF's to read a variety of nested
hierarchical  files.  Note that quite a few of the US Federal government
agencies that put out public data employ a nested hierarchical file
structure.   As an example, consider the following schema:

    Household record
            Person 1
            Person 2
                 Motor vehicle 1
           Person 3
                 Motor vehicle 2
                      Accident information
                 Motorcycle 1

 As you can see, keeping what links to what can become complex, but this
structure allows for a richer amount of data to be given out to the public
for further exploration and use.   In this particular example, one can see
patterns of vehicle usage by multiple persons within  the particular
household unit.    By examining these types of linkages, much more
analytical information can be explored than is typically done with simpler
file structures. 
 
Hope this is helpful.
   Marshall


-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Pfaff [mailto:address@hidden 
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2011 3:28 PM
To: Marshall DeBerry
Cc: address@hidden
Subject: Re: Import / Export Functions and other features missing for
academic and office use in urban planning

Thanks for the information!

Do you extensively use the complex files features of SPSS?  At one point
PSPP had an implementation of REPEATING DATA, which I've meant to restore
sometime, but PSPP has never implemented the other complex files features.
--
Ben Pfaff
http://benpfaff.org