Creating new codes from one meta code

This is another life saver syntax that I learnt from Minhaj. Some datasets come with only one large code with various information. For example it is common to have PSU code which includes the information about the respondent's location, sex etc.

Here is a syntax that can be modified.

SET OVars Both ONumbers Both TVars Both TNumbers Both.
SET OVars Labels ONumbers Labels TVars Labels TNumbers Labels.


comp province = trunc (psu/100000).
comp temp = trunc (psu/10000).
*comp locality = temp - (province*10).
var lab province 'Province'.
val lab province 1'Punjab' 2'Sindh' 3'NWFP' 4'Balochistan'.

format province (f1.0).

fre province.

In this syntax the point to note is that variable "psu" has 6 characters and the code for "province" is stored in position 1. Hence, it is divided by "10000" which will truncate the last 5 characters. 

More sources of social science data

Here is something you may consider to explore to see what social science data is available.

Github Social Science data.

"LIST" command to display the data

Yesterday I was at loss as I could not remember the "LIST" command to show or display the data "as is" rather than in aggregated form. Searched the internet and racked my brain for hours but all in vain. But thanks to Muhammad Ali, who sometimes helps in data entry, I was relieved of this torture this morning.

It is a really simple command and that is why it was difficult to find it through good search. So, the command to show the data "as it is" present in the data file, here is the command.

LIST [variable name(s)].

This command is used a lot for data cleaning and for looking at string variables where you don't expect to get phrases/sentences/words that match with each other. This is also useful to list all the responses of one respondent side by side.