strange symbols in write outfile

Posted by Maguin, Eugene on Aug 22, 2013; 2:02pm
URL: http://spssx-discussion.165.s1.nabble.com/strange-symbols-in-write-outfile-tp5721679.html

I’m writing an output data file using write outfile and the first line has some strange symbols in it prior to the data record.

 

 30 4 3 1 1 4.000000 4.000000 3.750000 2.000000 3.400000 1 2 3 1

 

I may be wrong but I think these magically appeared with 21. They do something, I’m sure, (and I think that something may have been mentioned on the list before but I don’t recall); I’m curious what it is. Can they be suppressed (because their presence screws up the data read in Mplus, which could be a limitation in that program). And, the surprising thing, the damn things can’t be seen or removed in notepad.

 

Gene Maguin