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12.5 FLIP

FLIP /VARIABLES=var_list /NEWNAMES=var_name.

FLIP transposes rows and columns in the active dataset. It causes cases to be swapped with variables, and vice versa.

All variables in the transposed active dataset are numeric. String variables take on the system-missing value in the transposed file.

N subcommands are required. If specified, the VARIABLES subcommand selects variables to be transformed into cases, and variables not specified are discarded. If the VARIABLES subcommand is omitted, all variables are selected for transposition.

The variables specified by NEWNAMES, which must be a string variable, is used to give names to the variables created by FLIP. Only the first 8 characters of the variable are used. If NEWNAMES is not specified then the default is a variable named CASE_LBL, if it exists. If it does not then the variables created by FLIP are named VAR000 through VAR999, then VAR1000, VAR1001, and so on.

When a NEWNAMES variable is available, the names must be canonicalized before becoming variable names. Invalid characters are replaced by letter ‘V’ in the first position, or by ‘_’ in subsequent positions. If the name thus generated is not unique, then numeric extensions are added, starting with 1, until a unique name is found or there are no remaining possibilities. If the latter occurs then the FLIP operation aborts.

The resultant dictionary contains a CASE_LBL variable, a string variable of width 8, which stores the names of the variables in the dictionary before the transposition. Variables names longer than 8 characters are truncated. If FLIP is called again on this dataset, the CASE_LBL variable can be passed to the NEWNAMES subcommand to recreate the original variable names.

FLIP honors N OF CASES (see N OF CASES). It ignores TEMPORARY (see TEMPORARY), so that “temporary” transformations become permanent.

12.5.1 Flip Examples

In Example 12.5, data has been entered using DATA LIST (see DATA LIST) such that the first variable in the dataset is a string variable containing a description of the other data for the case. Clearly this is not a convenient arrangement for performing statistical analyses, so it would have been better to think a little more carefully about how the data should have been arranged. However often the data is provided by some third party source, and you have no control over the form. Fortunately, we can use FLIP to exchange the variables and cases in the active dataset. 

data list notable list /heading (a16) v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6
begin data.
date-of-birth 1970 1989 2001 1966 1976 1982
sex 1 0 0 1 0 1
score 10 10 9 3 8 9
end data.

echo 'Before FLIP:'.
display variables.
list.

flip /variables = all /newnames = heading.

echo 'After FLIP:'.
display variables.
list.

Example 12.5: Using FLIP to exchange variables and cases in a dataset

As you can see in Results 12.3 before the FLIP command has run there are seven variables (six containing data and one for the heading) and three cases. Afterwards there are four variables (one per case, plus the CASE_LBL variable) and six cases. You can delete the CASE_LBL variable (see DELETE VARIABLES) if you don’t need it.

Before FLIP:

Variables
Name Position Print Format Write Format
heading 1 A16 A16
v1 2 F8.2 F8.2
v2 3 F8.2 F8.2
v3 4 F8.2 F8.2
v4 5 F8.2 F8.2
v5 6 F8.2 F8.2
v6 7 F8.2 F8.2
Data List
heading v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6
date-of-birth 1970.00 1989.00 2001.00 1966.00 1976.00 1982.00
sex 1.00 .00 .00 1.00 .00 1.00
score 10.00 10.00 9.00 3.00 8.00 9.00

After FLIP:

Variables
Name Position Print Format Write Format
CASE_LBL 1 A8 A8
date_of_birth 2 F8.2 F8.2
sex 3 F8.2 F8.2
score 4 F8.2 F8.2
Data List
CASE_LBL date_of_birth sex score
v1 1970.00 1.00 10.00
v2 1989.00 .00 10.00
v3 2001.00 .00 9.00
v4 1966.00 1.00 3.00
v5 1976.00 .00 8.00
v6 1982.00 1.00 9.00

Results 12.3: The results of using FLIP to exchange variables and cases in a dataset

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