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.