Re: Noob needs help with simple script

[Ben Pfaff]

"David Spaugh" <address@hidden> writes:

> http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ahcd/ahcd_questionnaires.htm
>  
> Scroll down to Public-use Data Files / Downloadable Data Files.
> Click the link for NAMCS, 1993-2008.
> Choose NAMCS08.exe. 
> This downloads a 2.2MB zip file to your drive, which extracts to a 27MB data
> file.  That's the file I'm working with. 

OK.  I did this and tried out the syntax that you provided.  It
worked out OK for me, yielding a data window with 28741 cases.  I
didn't see the problem that you mentioned.  (I'm running this on
GNU/Linux; I think you said you were using Windows.)

This suggests to me that the problem that you are seeing is one
of the following:

        * It is a bug in PSPP that has been fixed since 0.7.5.
          You could try with the latest PSPP version to find this
          out.

        * It is a Windows-specific bug in PSPP that I am trying
          to track down anyway.  More information at
          https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?33250.  If this is the
          problem, then running 'set workspace=100000000.' before
          you load the data will make it go away.

        * Something new...

I'd be happy to try out your full syntax, if you like, too.

> FYI, FWIW, etc:  If you surf the links for related documentation, you'll see
> that gov actually provided an SPSS script for file import for a few data-sets
> from 2006 and earlier.  That was actually my personal discovery point for
> PSPP, leading to my attempt to create a simple script for the 2008 data file,
> and to this email.  My goal is much simpler than the "segregate and label"
> functions provided by the huge gov script.  I only need to import the data
> into a usable PSPP "spreadsheet" to sort & determine the number of 382.x
> diagnoses, and then what proportion of those were accompanied by a certain
> prescription drug code.  I'll then adapt & apply the same script to multiple
> prior years and to evaluate trends in antibiotic drug consumption for that
> diagnosis. 

I tried running the .sps file for the 2006 data set here, to make
sure that PSPP can handle it.  It mostly worked.  The only
problems were either genuine syntax errors in the .sps file
(e.g. trying to put a single-quoted inside a single-quoted string
without doubling it) or using commands that are not yet
implemented (e.g. ORTHOPLAN).
-- 
Ben Pfaff 
http://benpfaff.org