Re: Warnings exceed limit

[Alan Mead]

This is probably known, but SPSS will stop on some errors. If the GET
DATA command fails, it will stop at the first routine that requires a
dataset. I think it will also stop on a duplicate key when merging files
by a condition.

I don't think it stops on errors like divide-by-zero (i.e., where I've
generated the D-B-Z error in a COMPUTE statement).

I think it would generate warnings if my specification didn't match the
data in a GET DATA statement, and only up to some limit. I agree with
Frans, in a large dataset, this could generate a huge number of
warnings. Missing values are a common problem. I had a problem recently
where I needed to add a BOM to UTF8 data files or else SPSS will
complain each time it reads a wide char (all because some of the survey
responses used an mdash instead of a hyphen to represent a range, like
3-5!).

-Alan

On 11/16/2019 1:51 AM, Frans Houweling wrote:
> Hi Ben,
> GET DATA on csv files is the main source, like when missing values are
> coded "NA" or ":".
> Plus I do make the ehm occasional mistake - but as what I do wrong in
> the first record I do wrong in all the following records too, I always
> reach MXWARNS. I can see some justification for halting in the case of
> vector index out of bounds, but other errors like divide by zero cause
> no harm at all, like the GET DATA case.
> So if I could decide, I would vote for continue syntax processing.
> Thanks
> frans
>
>
> On 11/16/19 4:35 AM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
>> I'm a little surprised you're receiving so many warnings. Is that a
>> problem of its own? What's the underlying cause?
>>
>> On Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 12:36 PM Frans Houweling <address@hidden
>> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>>
>>     Correction: syntax processing does stop - only not in the first
>>     procedure. Bad!
>>     frans
>>
>>     On 11/15/19 8:47 PM, Frans Houweling wrote:
>>
>>     > Hi,
>>     > I often see this message
>>     >   "note: Warnings (n+1) exceed limit (n).  Syntax processing
>>     will be
>>     > halted."
>>     > Luckily, syntax processing seems to go on anyway. I think the
>>     message
>>     > should just say "No more warnings will be issued" and syntax
>>     > processing should not be halted.
>>     > I am aware SET MXWARNS=0 suppresses all warnings - but I like to
>>     see
>>     > at least one (or possibly one per type).
>>     > Greetings
>>     > frans
>>     >
>>

-- 

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.
President, Talent Algorithms Inc.

science + technology = better workers

http://www.alanmead.org

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