Old SPSS System File
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Hi. I have an SPSS System File that was created in 1983 on a DEC VAX/VMS 11/780 machine. Does anyone know how I can convert it in order to use it with current versions of SPSS? Thanks, Dan Krymkowski Professor of Sociology University of Vermont |
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Change the file extension from *.sys to *.sav. I worked on a series of DEC and Vax machines and had a similar problem with SPSS *.sys files (backed up on seven 2000ft mag tapes by a sympathetic computer operator to avoid them being wiped in routine annual spring-cleaning of student files). I took these to the UK Data Archive (Essex) to do some analysis, but they had changed to PC based network and no longer had their DEC-10, so they couldn't process them. Their priorities then switched to "big data" so my tapes lay untouched for three years until they were returned with everything copied on to two CDs, none of which I could read on my DOS based PC. After I (early) retired in 1992 I had no access to SPSS until 2002 when I offered to review Julie Pallant "SPSS Survival Manual." (1st edition, Open University Press, 2001) for the (UK) Social Research Association. There is now a 4th revised edition, (Allen and Unwin, 2010 for SPSS 18). Reviews of all four are on https://surveyresearch.weebly.com/julie-pallant-spss-survival-manual.html and comments. I had only ever used SPSS on a mainframe and discovered to my horror that it was about SPSS for Windows on a PC! For gory details see: https://surveyresearch.weebly.com/old-dog-old-tricks-using-spss-syntax-to-beat-the-mouse-trap.html However my son lent me a Windows-based PC and I was able to mobilise old professional networks. SPSS France sent me an evaluation copy of SPSS 11 for Windows with a 1-year licence. After I had done the review, I started to play with the material on the CDs, and that's when I discovered I had the same problem. I eventually worked out that if I changed the file extensions from *.sys to *.sav all files could be read. (Ditto *.dat to *.txt and *.lis to *.spv.) On the strength of my review, SPSS France extended my licence to 5 years, so I started reviewing one or two more SPSS textbooks, I converting and updating all my old teaching materials from SPSSx_8 to SPSS for Windows and from Wordstar to Word. When the 5-year licence was about to expire I panicked and asked the textbook authors for advice. George Argyrous (Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) suggested I apply to SPSS for an Academic Authorship agreement. These are normally reserved for textbooks, but SPSS Inc accepted my web-based self-teaching course Survey Analysis Workshop (https://surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop-spss.html ) as a textbook equivalent and granted me a renewable licence, continued with IBM-SPSS to this day. John F Hall MA (Cantab) Dip Ed (Dunelm) [Retired academic survey researcher] Email: [hidden email] Website: Journeys in Survey Research Course: Survey Analysis Workshop (SPSS) From: SPSSX(r) Discussion <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of Daniel Krymkowski Hi. I have an SPSS System File that was created in 1983 on a DEC VAX/VMS 11/780 machine. Does anyone know how I can convert it in order to use it with current versions of SPSS? Thanks, Dan Krymkowski Professor of Sociology University of Vermont ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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In reply to this post by Daniel Krymkowski
Buried deep in that (yawn) novella...
"I eventually worked out that if I changed the file extensions from *.sys to *.sav all files could be read. (Ditto *.dat to *.txt and *.lis to *.spv.) " ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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The answer was in the first line: you didn't have to read the rest, but others might appreciate it.
John F Hall MA (Cantab) Dip Ed (Dunelm) [Retired academic survey researcher] Email: [hidden email] Website: Journeys in Survey Research Course: Survey Analysis Workshop (SPSS) Research: Subjective Social Indicators (Quality of Life) -----Original Message----- From: SPSSX(r) Discussion <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of David Marso Sent: 16 October 2018 08:52 To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: Old SPSS System File Buried deep in that (yawn) novella... "I eventually worked out that if I changed the file extensions from *.sys to *.sav all files could be read. (Ditto *.dat to *.txt and *.lis to *.spv.) " ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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I'm not convinced that you can open a legacy DEC VAX data file on a recent Windows version of SPSS Statistics simply by changing the file extension, but generally speaking Windows file extensions are essentially arbitrary. The UI for opening SPSS Statistics data files will filter out any files without a .sav or .zsav extension by default, but you can change the filter in the "Files of Type" list to "*.*", which will display all files, regardless of extension -- or you could enter "*.sys" in file name field to see only files with the extension .sys -- and if the internal format is recognized as a valid SPSS-format data file, the application will open the file. The GET FILE command does not care what the extension is: data list list /x y z. begin data 1 2 3 end data. *save the SPSS-format data file with an arbitary extension. save outfile="c:\temp\spssdatafile.xyz". dataset close all. new file. *open the SPSS-format data file that has an arbitrary extension. get file "c:\temp\spssdatafile.xyz". On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 2:32 AM John F Hall <[hidden email]> wrote: The answer was in the first line: you didn't have to read the rest, but others might appreciate it. |
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I made us of SPSS Save files on a Vax from 1983 or so.
I recall that there was some big potential for no-backward-incompatibility, somewhere
around version 4.0. I don't remember what the problem was, but the hazard caused me
to go back and re-read/re-write all my .sav files of an earlier version. If I recall correctly, I
did my re-Saves to put the files into the "portable" format, which was ASCII-based. (I think
going from two versions of .sav might have worked, but I was trying for a conversion that
would be most robust.) (I google that .por is still available, but not for unicode; and it shrinks
var-names to 8 characters.)
I reprocessed all my "old" .sav files. If I recall correctly, I was able to identify "old" by looking
at a dump to read text-stamp near the start of the file, which reported the SPSS version used.
I wrote a Fortran program that scanned the first characters of all my .sav files and found the files
that needed to be replaced.
--
Rich Ulrich
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion <[hidden email]> on behalf of Rick Oliver <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2018 1:21 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: Old SPSS System File I'm not convinced that you can open a legacy DEC VAX data file on a recent Windows version of SPSS Statistics simply by changing the file extension, but generally speaking Windows file extensions are essentially arbitrary. The UI for opening
SPSS Statistics data files will filter out any files without a .sav or .zsav extension by default, but you can change the filter in the "Files of Type" list to "*.*", which will display all files, regardless of extension -- or you could enter "*.sys" in file
name field to see only files with the extension .sys -- and if the internal format is recognized as a valid SPSS-format data file, the application will open the file.
The GET FILE command does not care what the extension is: data list list /x y z.
begin data
1 2 3
end data.
*save the SPSS-format data file with an arbitary extension.
save outfile="c:\temp\spssdatafile.xyz".
dataset close all.
new file.
*open the SPSS-format data file that has an arbitrary extension.
get file "c:\temp\spssdatafile.xyz".
On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 2:32 AM John F Hall <[hidden email]> wrote:
The answer was in the first line: you didn't have to read the rest, but others might appreciate it. |
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The portable file format (.por) was designed (long before my time) to handle data transport between platforms where sav file were incompatible such as IBM mainframe and pretty much anything else. It became obsolete when the sav file was made read and write compatible across all SPSS platforms. Although it is still available in current SPSS Statistics versions, it is obsolete, and the CSR says "The EXPORT command [which produces portable files] is deprecated and will not be supported in future releases. The EXPORT command is not supported in Unicode mode.", and, as Rich said, it is limited to 8-byte variable names, which was the limit back in the old days. The CSR has said this, though, through many Statistics releases. There are many other features of sav files that it does not support. On Tue, Oct 16, 2018 at 5:05 PM Rich Ulrich <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Hi,
you may try out this page: http://pspp.benpfaff.org/ Andreas -- Sent from: http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/ ===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD |
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