RE: Import Codebook

[jhwhite]

 

Hi Marek,

 

Below is a message I sent out last week regarding your current issues with importing CSV files in PSPP, which is a FANTASTIC PROGRAM:

 

START OF QUOTE

Last year I was doing text mining, VIA the IBM Watson system, and had some issues importing raw data files (i.e., txt)  where labels were lost in the import process.  After some research, I found a spreadsheet that permitted a clean import with full labels intact.  The spreadsheet is Gnumeric Spreadsheet.  Some of you are probably familiar with this program.  It is a free program, so it is worth looking to see if it would help resolve the issue/some of the problems.

 

As for the codebook with value labels, I did away with a codebook approach 20 years ago – it is quicker to use the “male” or “female value labels, as suggested in this thread.  It was not that I was smarter than others, just lazier than others.  In turn, if required, you can always use the “recode” or “compute” routines to change the non-numeric variables to numeric values for your fancy stats.

 

Just my simple understanding of the problem presented – at least, I think that is the given problem.

 

Enjoy your weekend, folks.

END OF QUOTE

 

Take care,

John

___________________________

 

 

Email: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com

 

 

 

From: Marek Ludwig <marek.ludwig@fh-potsdam.de>
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2022 7:42 AM
To: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com; amead@alanmead.org; pspp-users@gnu.org
Cc: Katja Behrndt <katja.behrndt@fh-potsdam.de>
Subject: AW: Import Codebook

 

Dear John, 

that is correct. We transformed the Excel files into CSV and the labeling in form of the codebook gets lost during the process. 

 

Regards,

Marek

---

Von: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com <jhwhite@techwriteinc.com>
Gesendet: Freitag, 21. Januar 2022 18:50:24
An: amead@alanmead.org; Marek Ludwig; pspp-users@gnu.org
Cc: Katja Behrndt
Betreff: RE: Import Codebook

 

If I understand the issue correctly, variable labels are not being installed when importing some Excel files into PSPP. Is this correct?

 

Take care,

John

___________________________

 

 

Email: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com

 

From: Pspp-users <pspp-users-bounces+jhwhite=techwriteinc.com@gnu.org> On Behalf Of Alan Mead
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2022 9:23 PM
To: Marek Ludwig <marek.ludwig@fh-potsdam.de>; pspp-users@gnu.org
Cc: Katja Behrndt <katja.behrndt@fh-potsdam.de>
Subject: Re: Import Codebook

 

I find applying labels to be very time-consuming, so maybe that's bad news for you. Maybe someone else will have a great idea.

 

But to make it as quick as possible, I'd recommend that you generate syntax and execute that syntax. I think that will be MUCH quicker than individually clicking and editing these values using the graphical user interface.

 

A lot of people are scared of syntax, but it's not so hard. An added advantage of doing it this way is that you easily fix an error by fixing the syntax and re-running it.

 

Also, if you have the information in a spreadsheet, I would try to generate the syntax using formulas in the spreadsheet. If column A contained the spss variable name (maybe "V1") and column B contained the variable label, then into cell C1 I would insert:

 

="variable labels "&A1&" '"&B1&"'." 

 

(Note that there are single quotes, inside the double quotes, around B1 because it's a string.)

 

If A1 = V1 and B1 = Beschriftung then this would generate:

 

variable labels V1 'Beschriftung'.

 

And if you paste that into a syntax window, add the line "Execute." and run it, it would label this variable. You could paste 200 rows of Column C, add "Execute." and create the 200 variable labels very easily.

 

The value labels could be done similarly but I'd have to see the spreadsheet to devise the correct formula(s)...

 

This page describes the syntax:

http://www.statsmakemecry.com/smmctheblog/using-syntax-to-assign-variable-labels-and-value-labels-in-s.html

 

This includes my solution and suggests an alternative (that may not work with PSPP):

https://www.reddit.com/r/spss/comments/mobw0z/import_excel_file_while_maintaining_variable/

 

Here are the relevant PSPP manual pages:

https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/VALUE-LABELS.html

https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/VARIABLE-LABELS.html

https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/MISSING-VALUES.html

 

 

-Alan

 

 

On 1/19/2022 9:01 AM, Marek Ludwig wrote:

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

 

-- 

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.

President, Talent Algorithms Inc.

science + technology = better workers

https://talalg.com

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you

take into account Hofstadter's Law.