Identifying first and last cases

[trece por ciento]

I´m trying to identify the first and last cases of a sav file with:

match files file=* /last=fin.
do if fin.
compute ...
end if.

And I get the error:

Error # 5124 : A FIRST or LAST subcommand is specified without a BY
subcommand.  A BY subcommand is required with a FIRST or LAST subcommand.

Sorry, but I don't catch the error.

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[Melissa Ives]

I've never done this, but it is saying that you need to add a /BY=varname to your Match file command--otherwise SPSS won't know which 'last' you want to identify.
Try something like: (the /by command may need to go before /last??)

match files file=* /last=fin /by=myvar.
do if fin.
compute ...
end if.

Melissa

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of el13porciento
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 10:10 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SPSSX-L] Identifying first and last cases

I´m trying to identify the first and last cases of a sav file with:

match files file=* /last=fin.
do if fin.
compute ...
end if.

And I get the error:

Error # 5124 : A FIRST or LAST subcommand is specified without a BY subcommand.  A BY subcommand is required with a FIRST or LAST subcommand.

Sorry, but I don't catch the error.

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[Richard Ristow]

At 11:09 AM 10/18/2007, el13porciento wrote:

>I'm trying to identify the first and last cases of a sav file with:
>
>match files file=* /last=fin.
>do if fin.
>compute ...
>end if.
>
>And I get the error:
>
>>Error # 5124 : A FIRST or LAST subcommand is specified without a BY
>>subcommand.  A BY subcommand is required with a FIRST or LAST
>>subcommand.

Melissa's quite right: "you need to add a /BY=varname to your Match
file command--otherwise SPSS won't know which 'last' you want to
identify."

To identify the first and last cases in the file altogether, the
following somewhat kludgy solution is standard:

COMPUTE NOBREAK = 1.
match files file=* /BY NOBREAK/last=fin.

You can identify the first case in the file by

IF $CASENUM EQ 1 ...

but there's no built-in for the last case, as such. Sigh.

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