One of two open files becomes inactive

[Dennis Deck]

I have occasionally lost the data file I am working on if I have two
files open
(ie, it still exists on the drive but it is no longer in use).
When it happens SPSS tries to use the file that is still open.
I have not noticed any pattern that would help pinpoint when this
happens.  
If I only have 1 file open there is no problem.  

Has anyone else experience this problem or figured out what is driving
it?
Thanks.

Dennis Deck, PhD
RMC Research Corporation
111 SW Columbia Street, Suite 1200
Portland, Oregon 97201-5843
voice: 503-223-8248 x715
[hidden email]

[Richard Ristow]

At 04:25 PM 9/28/2007, Dennis Deck wrote:

>I have occasionally lost the data file I am working ...

First, what version of SPSS are you using? The question looks very
different in SPSS 14 or 15, with datasets, than it does in earlier
versions. I'm guessing you do have 14 or 15, as I can't think of how to
get two files open at once in earlier versions.

>[Occasionally] if I have two files open [I lose the file I am working
>on] (ie, it still exists on the drive but it is no longer in use).
>When it happens SPSS tries to use the file that is still open. I have
>not noticed any pattern that would help pinpoint when this happens.

Can you post any code for which this problem ever arises, granting that
it does not do so repeatedly?

Your description *sounds* like a change in which dataset is active
(SPSS 14 or 15, of course). Briefly, while you can have any number of
datasets open (or anyhow, some large number), one is *active*. The
'active' dataset is analogous to the working file in older versions:
all transformation programs act on the data in the active dataset, and
all statistical procedures work off its data. (Pardon me if you already
know all this, as you well may.)

Here's one possibility; ONLY a possibility, of course.

If you're working interactively, and you have several datasets open,
one of them has the frontmost window. I've called that the 'foreground'
dataset. (Jon Peck of SPSS, Inc., uses 'active in the frontend'.)

IT IS NOT NECESSARILY THE SAME AS THE ACTIVE DATASET! (Jon Peck refers
to the latter as 'active in the backend'.)

Here's what might be a problem: If you run a procedure from the menus,
it runs against the 'foreground' dataset. Remember, I wrote that it
runs against the active dataset, and then said that may not be the same
as the foreground dataset. The SPSS menu system resolves this by
generating a command to make the foreground dataset the active one, if
it isn't already.

Any chance that's what's happening to you?

For more on this, though likely more confusing than clarifying, see
thread '"Active" dataset', on this list beginning Mon, 30 Apr 2007
<18:58:32 -0400>.