Variable width

[Deepa Bhat]

Hi everyone,

This may sound like a simple question.

How large can the variable width be?
I have this database that was sent to me and it seems like for all the string variables, the words have been cut off after 50 characters. I try to make it larger, but I still can't type more than 50 characters. I have SPSS 17.

Any idea on what is going on?

 

Thanks,
Deepa

[SPSS Support]

Hi Deepa,
  As of SPSS 15, the maximum string width is 32,767. If the variable width was 200 characters and the column width  for the variable was 50 characters, for example, you could type 200 characters into a cell for that variable, even though you only see 50 characters at a time. The view for the cell will continue to shift to the right as you type.
What type of database (including version number, if known) was involved?
Did you open it from the ODBC wizard (File->Open Dataset->New Query) or from File->Open->Data?
What were the Width and Columns values in the Variable View for that variable?

David Matheson
SPSS Statistical Support


________________________________________
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Deepa Bhat
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:58 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Variable width

Hi everyone,

This may sound like a simple question.

How large can the variable width be?
I have this database that was sent to me and it seems like for all the string variables, the words have been cut off after 50 characters. I try to make it larger, but I still can't type more than 50 characters. I have SPSS 17.

Any idea on what is going on?

Thanks,
Deepa

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[Peck, Jon]

One clarification.  The limit is in bytes, not characters.  In the traditional code page mode, most Asian characters take two bytes.  In Unicode mode (available in 16 and later)  Most accented characters and others not in the western European character set take two bytes, and most Asian characters take three.

Regards,
Jon Peck

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of SPSS Support
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 5:03 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] Variable width

Hi Deepa,
  As of SPSS 15, the maximum string width is 32,767. If the variable width was 200 characters and the column width  for the variable was 50 characters, for example, you could type 200 characters into a cell for that variable, even though you only see 50 characters at a time. The view for the cell will continue to shift to the right as you type.
What type of database (including version number, if known) was involved?
Did you open it from the ODBC wizard (File->Open Dataset->New Query) or from File->Open->Data?
What were the Width and Columns values in the Variable View for that variable?

David Matheson
SPSS Statistical Support


________________________________________
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Deepa Bhat
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 9:58 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Variable width

Hi everyone,

This may sound like a simple question.

How large can the variable width be?
I have this database that was sent to me and it seems like for all the string variables, the words have been cut off after 50 characters. I try to make it larger, but I still can't type more than 50 characters. I have SPSS 17.

Any idea on what is going on?

Thanks,
Deepa

=====================
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[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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[Maguin, Eugene]

Jon (and others who know about these things),

In the reply to Deepa, you say
>>>... In the traditional code page mode, most Asian characters take two
bytes.  In Unicode mode (available in 16 and later)  Most accented
characters and others not in the western European character set take two
bytes, and most Asian characters take three.

I recently read an access (2002 or 2003) table that contained western
European accented characters into spss(16). Would you describe how spss
handles such data? Does spss take the access record as represented at the
byte level or does spss attempt to translate non-English characters to some
english representation, perhaps by stripping off the accent byte, or
something else? (It does seem that access tries to do something in some
cases but I don't understand the standards that apply.) There seems to be no
documentation of this in the CSR where I would expect (in the import/export
character set appendix).

Secondly, where would one find character sequence tables that correspond to
those described in the import/export character set appendix. I suppose there
is one of these for every language (or code page). Although I don't know
whether a code page equals a language and vice versa. The problem is how to
find and strip out the accent byte or change the accented character to a
pseudo-English representation so that fields can be equalized on sorts or
other operations. I have to do this very seldom but hand searching is not so
much fun.

Thanks, Gene Maguin

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