removing final punctuation in a string

[Cleland, Patricia (EDU)]

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

[Maguin, Eugene]

Patricia,

 

Rtrim. Look at this function.

 

Gene Maguin

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From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Cleland, Patricia (EDU)
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 9:04 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: removing final punctuation in a string

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

[Art Kendall]

The example syntax below is verbose for readability. It can be done more compactly.  It assumes that "same" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Copy the example below into a new instance of SPSS. See if this does what you want. She can aggregate on newvar2 or finalstring.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

data list list /oldstring (a30).
begin data
"123 A St. someplace."
"123 A St. someplace"
"123 A St. Someplace."
"123 A St. some place"
"27.5 oz."
"27.5 oz"
end data.
string  newstring(a30).
*the inner rtrim removes trailing blanks.
*the outer rtrim removes a trailing period.
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'.').
autorecode variables = newstring /into newvar1/print.
*the recode depends on what is on the output file.
recode newvar1 (1 thru 3 =1)(else=copy)into newvar2 .
formats newvar2 (f2).
string finalstring(a30).
APPLY DICTIONARY from * /SOURCE VARIABLES = newvar1 /TARGET VARIABLES = newvar2.
compute finalstring = VALUELABEL(newvar2).
list.


On 12/7/2010 9:04 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

===================== 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

[Cleland, Patricia (EDU)]

Thanks Art. That worked great.

 

However, after she ran it my colleague discovered that some respondents had ended their responses with other punctuation marks such as colon, semi-colon or question mark. Is there a way to trim all of these on a single pass or will she need to re-run the code 4 times, first trimming out the periods, then the colons, then the semi-colons and finally the question marks?

 

Pat

---

From: Art Kendall [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: December 7, 2010 10:18 AM
To: Cleland, Patricia (EDU)
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] removing final punctuation in a string

 

The example syntax below is verbose for readability. It can be done more compactly.  It assumes that "same" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Copy the example below into a new instance of SPSS. See if this does what you want. She can aggregate on newvar2 or finalstring.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

data list list /oldstring (a30).
begin data
"123 A St. someplace."
"123 A St. someplace"
"123 A St. Someplace."
"123 A St. some place"
"27.5 oz."
"27.5 oz"
end data.
string  newstring(a30).
*the inner rtrim removes trailing blanks.
*the outer rtrim removes a trailing period.
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'.').
autorecode variables = newstring /into newvar1/print.
*the recode depends on what is on the output file.
recode newvar1 (1 thru 3 =1)(else=copy)into newvar2 .
formats newvar2 (f2).
string finalstring(a30).
APPLY DICTIONARY from * /SOURCE VARIABLES = newvar1 /TARGET VARIABLES = newvar2.
compute finalstring = VALUELABEL(newvar2).
list.


On 12/7/2010 9:04 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

[Art Kendall]

Assuming that there are not multiple punctuation marks at the end of the string just put in
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),':').
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),';').
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'?').


Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 12/7/2010 11:12 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

Thanks Art. That worked great.

 

However, after she ran it my colleague discovered that some respondents had ended their responses with other punctuation marks such as colon, semi-colon or question mark. Is there a way to trim all of these on a single pass or will she need to re-run the code 4 times, first trimming out the periods, then the colons, then the semi-colons and finally the question marks?

 

Pat

---

From: Art Kendall [[hidden email]]
Sent: December 7, 2010 10:18 AM
To: Cleland, Patricia (EDU)
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] removing final punctuation in a string

 

The example syntax below is verbose for readability. It can be done more compactly.  It assumes that "same" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Copy the example below into a new instance of SPSS. See if this does what you want. She can aggregate on newvar2 or finalstring.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

data list list /oldstring (a30).
begin data
"123 A St. someplace."
"123 A St. someplace"
"123 A St. Someplace."
"123 A St. some place"
"27.5 oz."
"27.5 oz"
end data.
string  newstring(a30).
*the inner rtrim removes trailing blanks.
*the outer rtrim removes a trailing period.
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'.').
autorecode variables = newstring /into newvar1/print.
*the recode depends on what is on the output file.
recode newvar1 (1 thru 3 =1)(else=copy)into newvar2 .
formats newvar2 (f2).
string finalstring(a30).
APPLY DICTIONARY from * /SOURCE VARIABLES = newvar1 /TARGET VARIABLES = newvar2.
compute finalstring = VALUELABEL(newvar2).
list.


On 12/7/2010 9:04 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

===================== 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

[Albert-Jan Roskam]

Hello!

Untested:

import spss, re
def stripPunctuation(targetVar):
    cur=spss.Cursor(accessType='w')
    for i in range(cur.GetCaseCount()):
        case = cur.fetchone()[0]
        cur.SetValueChar(targetVar, re.sub("\W+", "", case))
        cur.CommitCase()
    cur.close()

stripPunctuation(targetVar = "yourVarNameHere")

 

Cheers!!
Albert-Jan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

---

From: Art Kendall <[hidden email]>
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Tue, December 7, 2010 5:31:23 PM
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] removing final punctuation in a string

Assuming that there are not multiple punctuation marks at the end of the string just put in
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),':').
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),';').
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'?').


Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

On 12/7/2010 11:12 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

Thanks Art. That worked great.

 

However, after she ran it my colleague discovered that some respondents had ended their responses with other punctuation marks such as colon, semi-colon or question mark. Is there a way to trim all of these on a single pass or will she need to re-run the code 4 times, first trimming out the periods, then the colons, then the semi-colons and finally the question marks?

 

Pat

---

From: Art Kendall [[hidden email]]
Sent: December 7, 2010 10:18 AM
To: Cleland, Patricia (EDU)
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SPSSX-L] removing final punctuation in a string

 

The example syntax below is verbose for readability. It can be done more compactly.  It assumes that "same" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Copy the example below into a new instance of SPSS. See if this does what you want. She can aggregate on newvar2 or finalstring.

Art Kendall
Social Research Consultants

data list list /oldstring (a30).
begin data
"123 A St. someplace."
"123 A St. someplace"
" 123 A St. Someplace."
"123 A St. some place"
"27.5 oz."
"27.5 oz"
end data.
string  newstring(a30).
*the inner rtrim removes trailing blanks.
*the outer rtrim removes a trailing period.
compute newstring= Rtrim(rtrim(oldstring),'.').
autorecode variables = newstring /into newvar1/print.
*the recode depends on what is on the output file.
recode newvar1 (1 thru 3 =1)(else=copy)into newvar2 .
formats newvar2 (f2).
string finalstring(a30).
APPLY DICTIONARY from * /SOURCE VARIABLES = newvar1 /TARGET VARIABLES = newvar2.
compute finalstring = VALUELABEL(newvar2).
list.


On 12/7/2010 9:04 AM, Cleland, Patricia (EDU) wrote:

A colleague is analyzing a string variable.  The same phrases appear in a number of responses. She wants to aggregate those responses but some respondents ended their response with a period and others didn’t. This means that AGGREGATE treats them as different responses.

 

Is there a way to remove the period at the end of the response only?  (She can remove all the periods, but that causes other problems.)

 

TIA

 

Pat

 

 

===================== 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