I am in the process of doing exactly that with a fairly huge CSV file that I just imported. The easiest way I have found to do it is using syntax. One approach is to assign variable labels. With either approach, to save myself a lot of typing, I build the structure in Excel columns and then copy and paste them into an editor to build the actual syntax.
Syntax:
Variable Labels
Var1 = 'EPA Handler ID'
Var2 = 'Activity Location'
Var3 = 'Source Type'
Var4 = 'Sequence Number'
Var5 = 'Handler Name'
Var6 = 'Non-Notifier'
Var7 = 'Receive Date'
Var8 = 'Biennial Report Cycle'
The other approach is to rename the variables using the rename command:
RENAME VARIABLES changes the names of variables in the active dataset.
RENAME VARIABLES (old_names=new_names)… .Specify lists of the old variable names and new variable names, separated by an equals sign (‘=’), within parentheses. There must be the same number of old and new variable names. Each old variable is renamed to the corresponding new variable name. Multiple parenthesized groups of variables may be specified. When the old and new variable names contain only a single variable name, the parentheses are optional.
RENAME VARIABLES takes effect immediately. It does not cause the data to be read.
RENAME VARIABLES may not be specified following TEMPORARY (see TEMPORARY).
Elio Spinello, EdD
RPM Consulting, LLC
27943 Seco Canyon Rd #320
Santa Clarita, CA 91350-3872
Office: 818-831-7607
Cell: 818-570-3546
From: Pspp-users <pspp-users-bounces+espinello=rpmconsulting.com@gnu.org> On Behalf Of Marek Ludwig
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2022 7:02 AM
To: pspp-users@gnu.org
Cc: Katja Behrndt <katja.behrndt@fh-potsdam.de>
Subject: Import Codebook
Dear All,
we have read in a CSV dataset that we had generated from an Excel file. Unfortunately, the codebook got lost in the process, so that the columns for labels("Beschriftung"), value labels ("Wertelabels") and missing values ("Fehlende Werte") are empty. Since our dataset has over 200 variables, filling them in manually would be very time consuming. Is there an efficient, faster solution to read in the codebook or fill in these columns?
I would be very grateful for a hint!
Thanks a lot,
Marek