16.4.5 The PRINT Command

PRINT [expression]
      [/FORMAT=format]
      [/TITLE=title]
      [/SPACE={NEWPAGE | n}]
      [{/RLABELS=string… | /RNAMES=expression}]
      [{/CLABELS=string… | /CNAMES=expression}].

The PRINT command is commonly used to display a matrix. It evaluates the restricted expression, if present, and outputs it either as text or a pivot table, depending on the setting of MDISPLAY (see SET MDISPLAY).

Use the FORMAT subcommand to specify a format, such as F8.2, for displaying the matrix elements. FORMAT is optional for numerical matrices. When it is omitted, PSPP chooses how to format entries automatically using m, the magnitude of the largest-magnitude element in the matrix to be displayed:

1. If m < 10^{11} and the matrix’s elements are all integers, PSPP chooses the narrowest F format that fits m plus a sign. For example, if the matrix is {1:10}, then m = 10, which fits in 3 columns with room for a sign, the format is F3.0.
2. Otherwise, if m ≥ 10^9 or m ≤ 10^{-4}, PSPP scales all of the numbers in the matrix by 10^x, where x is the exponent that would be used to display m in scientific notation. For example, for m = 5.123×10^{20}, the scale factor is 10^{20}. PSPP displays the scaled values in format F13.10 and notes the scale factor in the output.
3. Otherwise, PSPP displays the matrix values, without scaling, in format F13.10.

The optional TITLE subcommand specifies a title for the output text or table, as a quoted string. When it is omitted, the syntax of the matrix expression is used as the title.

Use the SPACE subcommand to request extra space above the matrix output. With a numerical argument, it adds the specified number of lines of blank space above the matrix. With NEWPAGE as an argument, it prints the matrix at the top of a new page. The SPACE subcommand has no effect when a matrix is output as a pivot table.

The RLABELS and RNAMES subcommands, which are mutually exclusive, can supply a label to accompany each row in the output. With RLABELS, specify the labels as comma-separated strings or other tokens. With RNAMES, specify a single expression that evaluates to a vector of strings. Either way, if there are more labels than rows, the extra labels are ignored, and if there are more rows than labels, the extra rows are unlabeled. For output to a pivot table with RLABELS, the labels can be any length; otherwise, the labels are truncated to 8 bytes.

The CLABELS and CNAMES subcommands work for labeling columns as RLABELS and RNAMES do for labeling rows.

When the expression is omitted, PRINT does not output a matrix. Instead, it outputs only the text specified on TITLE, if any, preceded by any space specified on the SPACE subcommand, if any. Any other subcommands are ignored, and the command acts as if MDISPLAY is set to TEXT regardless of its actual setting.

The following syntax demonstrates two different ways to label the rows and columns of a matrix with PRINT:

MATRIX.
COMPUTE m={1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9}.
PRINT m/RLABELS=a, b, c/CLABELS=x, y, z.

COMPUTE rlabels={"a", "b", "c"}.
COMPUTE clabels={"x", "y", "z"}.
PRINT m/RNAMES=rlabels/CNAMES=clabels.
END MATRIX.

With MDISPLAY=TEXT (the default), this program outputs the following (twice):

m
                x        y        z
a               1        2        3
b               4        5        6
c               7        8        9

With ‘SET MDISPLAY=TABLES.’ added above ‘MATRIX.’, the output becomes the following (twice):