Excluding a large number of cases easily

[cysp]

Hi,

I have a subjectID column and an exclusion column that includes all the subjectIDs that I want excluded. There is about 500 subjectIDs to be excluded. What would be the easiest way to exclude them without manually typing each subjectID as a conditional?

Thanks in advance

[David Marso]

Please define your situation a bit more clearly!
What do you mean by an "exclusion column"?
What is the relationship between this "exclusion column" wrt the cases/rows in your data file?
Maybe post a few cases with the subjectID and Exclusion column listed.
I will resist any temptations to attempt InterneTelepathy at the moment.

cysp wrote

Hi,

I have a subjectID column and an exclusion column that includes all the subjectIDs that I want excluded. There is about 500 subjectIDs to be excluded. What would be the easiest way to exclude them without manually typing each subjectID as a conditional?

Thanks in advance

[cysp]

I'm not sure how to explain it any clearer. I'll paste a few rows:

subjectID                     exclude
206.80211.14:34          208.80211.14:34
207.80211.14:34          211.80211.14:34
208.80211.14:34                    .
209.80211.14:34                    .
210.80211.14:34                    .
211.80211.14:34                    .
            .                                .
            .                                .
            .                                .


What I want to do: If any subjectID is in the exclude column, delete that row. I'm aware of the problem that deleting a row will also delete a value that's in the exclusion column.

[David Marso]

Hmmm, ODD way to organize data!!!
Best to have your "exclude" field in a separate data file with the same name as the subjectID and sorted.
Then sort the main data file, MATCH and flag the cases in the exclude file.
Working from what you have:  Untested as I can't run SPSS from my Mac partition and too lazy to reboot!

SORT CASES BY exclude.
DO IF (NOT(MISSING(exclude))).
+  COMPUTE excluded=exclude.
+  XSAVE OUTFILE "temp.sav" / KEEP excluded.
END IF.

SORT CASES BY subjectID.
COMPUTE excluded=subjectID.
MATCH FILES / FILE * / TABLE "temp.sav" / IN=nukeme / BY excluded.
SELECT IF NOT(nukeme).
EXECUTE.
**Verify!!!.
** OPTIONAL!!!.
MATCH FILES / FILE * / DROP exclude excluded nukeme.
EXECUTE.
** SPSS might bitch about the next line ;-(
ERASE FILE "temp.sav".

cysp wrote

I'm not sure how to explain it any clearer. I'll paste a few rows:

subjectID                     exclude
206.80211.14:34          208.80211.14:34
207.80211.14:34          211.80211.14:34
208.80211.14:34                    .
209.80211.14:34                    .
210.80211.14:34                    .
211.80211.14:34                    .
            .                                .
            .                                .
            .                                .


What I want to do: If any subjectID is in the exclude column, delete that row. I'm aware of the problem that deleting a row will also delete a value that's in the exclusion column.