Re: RECODE, CHISQ issues, and other feedback

[Ben Pfaff]

address@hidden writes:

> Her professor gives her data files in SPSS format, which I've been able 
> to load with pspp, but one of the datasets has a string format column, 
> which I need to make numeric.  I've done a recode in both the psppire 
> gui and by cli with RECODE (CONVERT) and it's just setting the value to 
> zero for everything.  RECODE is also missing all the THRU src constructs 
> for the recode mapping.  CONVERT doesn't seem to be "useful" at the 
> moment.  What worked for me was to do ('   1'=1) etc. maps, for all 
> values that were strings that needed to be cast to NUMERIC.

I tried to take a look at the tests for RECODE to how we were
testing CONVERT, only to find that there weren't any decent tests
for RECODE at all.  So I wrote some, which found a number of
bugs, and fixed the bugs.  The fixes are checked into the PSPP
CVS.  (If you find it inconvenient to use the PSPP CVS tree, I
can make a snapshot available too.)

> I REALLY don't think people should have to pay the gobs of money they 
> charge for SPSS, so if you guys need any coding to fill in the gaps, let 
> me know.  I'll probably be submitting some patches, at least to fix up 
> RECODE to at least match the manual's claims for what it does.  

I think I fixed it up to match SPSS now.

> I looked at the source code to figure out why THRU wasn't
> working (being unimplemented), so I'm already in the code.  

THRU should work.  It did in my tests, even before the bug
fixes.  Can you show me an example that doesn't work, but should?

> I might work on THRU, CONVERT, and single-factor chi-square is
> broken, even though passing multiple factors into it seems to
> work.  CROSSTABS /CELLS=... doesn't do what I expect, either.

CROSSTABS kind of sucks in some ways, yes, but I don't think I
know about this particular problem.  Can you give more details?

[...]

> Oh, and maybe you guys can hang out in the #pspp channel on freenode 
> where it says you are but nobody actually idles?

I don't really do IRC.  I think John D is the main guy who hangs
out in #pspp.  But he's in Australia so his hours may be a little
surprising from a North American viewpoint.
-- 
"There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you.
 And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you.
 I told them you were the best.  Now you damn well better be."
--Orson Scott Card, _Ender's Game_