Adding a prefix to all the variables in my file

[Jill Meron]

I have two files with identical variables that I need to merge.

Before I do the merge I need to change the names of the variables to make them unique.

I thought to add a prefix to each variable name but there are more than 300 variables in each file.

How do I do this using syntax?

Thanks for any help.

Jill Meron

[Albert-Jan Roskam]

Hi,

You could do this:

begin program.
import spss, spssaux
vd = spssaux.VariableDict()
oldnames = " ".join([var.VariableName for var in vd])
newnames = " ".join(["prefix_" + var.VariableName for var in vd])
spss.Submit("rename variables (%s = %s)." % (oldnames, newnames))
end program.

But if all the var names are the same, don't you mean to use ADD FILES?

Cheers!!
ALbert-Jan

--- On Mon, 4/27/09, Jill Meron <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: Jill Meron <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Adding a prefix to all the variables in my file
> To: [hidden email]
> Date: Monday, April 27, 2009, 9:39 PM
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> I have two files with identical
> variables that I need to
> merge.
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> Before I do the merge I need to change
> the names of the
> variables to make them unique.
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> I thought to add a prefix to each
> variable name but there
> are more than 300 variables in each file.
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> How do I do this using syntax?
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> Thanks for any help.
>
> Jill Meron
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[Allan Lundy, PhD]

At 03:39 PM 4/27/2009, Jill Meron wrote:

I have two files with identical variables that I need to merge.
Before I do the merge I need to change the names of the variables to make them unique.
I thought to add a prefix to each variable name but there are more than 300 variables in each file.
How do I do this using syntax?
Thanks for any help.
Jill Meron

Probably this could be done with syntax, but I'll bet the below is faster (took me about 1 minute, except for *):
In Variables view, select entire Name column and Copy.
Paste into column A in an Excel file.
Select top cell of column B (B1). 
In fx window, type:
=CONCATENATE("Pref",A1)
This will add the prefix Pref to the variable name in cell A1.
Copy the B1 cell.
Select all the rest of the B column through the end of the variable list.
Paste.
Select entire col B (click on B at top).
Copy.
Select entire col C.
Under Edit, click on Paste Special and select the bullet for Values. Click OK.
Re-select the new list of variable names in col C.  You will probably need to do this not as an entire column (selecting the C at top), but rather in one or more selections of individual cells: in top cell, click and hold mouse button to highlight.
Back in SPSS, select the same number of cells under Name, and Paste.  *Note: Here I got an error message saying "Variable name contains an illegal character," but re-doing it with smaller sets of cells worked fine.  I assume there was some difficulty reading the underscore character or something else from Excel, but as I said, it worked with smaller sets of cells.

Good Luck!

Allan Lundy, PhD
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