9.3 GET

GET
        /FILE={’file_name’,file_handle}
        /DROP=var_list
        /KEEP=var_list
        /RENAME=(src_names=target_names)…
        /ENCODING=’encoding’

GET clears the current dictionary and active dataset and replaces them with the dictionary and data from a specified file.

The FILE subcommand is the only required subcommand. Specify the SPSS system file, SPSS/PC+ system file, or SPSS portable file to be read as a string file name or a file handle (see File Handles).

By default, all the variables in a file are read. The DROP subcommand can be used to specify a list of variables that are not to be read. By contrast, the KEEP subcommand can be used to specify variable that are to be read, with all other variables not read.

Normally variables in a file retain the names that they were saved under. Use the RENAME subcommand to change these names. Specify, within parentheses, a list of variable names followed by an equals sign (‘=’) and the names that they should be renamed to. Multiple parenthesized groups of variable names can be included on a single RENAME subcommand. Variables’ names may be swapped using a RENAME subcommand of the form /RENAME=(A B=B A).

Alternate syntax for the RENAME subcommand allows the parentheses to be eliminated. When this is done, only a single variable may be renamed at once. For instance, /RENAME=A=B. This alternate syntax is deprecated.

DROP, KEEP, and RENAME are executed in left-to-right order. Each may be present any number of times. GET never modifies a file on disk. Only the active dataset read from the file is affected by these subcommands.

PSPP automatically detects the encoding of string data in the file, when possible. The character encoding of old SPSS system files cannot always be guessed correctly, and SPSS/PC+ system files do not include any indication of their encoding. Specify the ENCODING subcommand with an IANA character set name as its string argument to override the default. Use SYSFILE INFO to analyze the encodings that might be valid for a system file. The ENCODING subcommand is a PSPP extension.

GET does not cause the data to be read, only the dictionary. The data is read later, when a procedure is executed.

Use of GET to read a portable file is a PSPP extension.