Variables Dialog Box

 

 

 

Variable Selection

Automatic Selection of All Variables in the Data Set

When the input file has been specified in the Transfer dialog box, by default Stat/Transfer selects all of the variables for transfer.  A message will appear in the Transfer dialog box below the input File Specification line, telling you that all of the variables in the data set have been selected and giving you the total number of variables.

 

If you wish to transfer all of  the variables of the input data set, you need do nothing more to specify them.

 

Manually Selecting Particular Variables

If you want to select only some of the variables in the input data set, click on the Variables tab at the top of the Transfer dialog box. The Variables dialog box will appear with a list of all of the variables in the input data set.

 

When you highlight a variable, the variable label will appear in the box at the upper right

 

By default, all of the variables are selected. You can select or unselect variables one by one by going to a particular variable and toggling selection either on or off for that variable.  To do so,  click on the check box next to the name or click on the variable name and press the SPACE key.

 

If you wish to select or unselect a group of variables, use the Quick Variable Selector.

Quick Variable Selector

The box in the upper right corner enables you to specify selection criteria for the variables displayed in the list box at the left of the page.  This is considerably less tedious for long lists of variables than manually checking or unchecking them.

 

To select or unselect all of the variables, type a star, '*', in the Quick Variable Selector box and click either Keep or Drop.

 

Selection conditions can take the form of the wildcard characters '*' or '?' or you can use variable ranges.  The question mark matches exactly one character, while the asterisk matches more than one.  Unlike standard wildcards, more than one asterisk can be included in a specification.  For instance: '*inc*' will match any variable with the string 'inc' in any position.  Ranges of contiguous variables can be specified with a dash (without spaces) between two variable names.  For instance 'distance-a9' will select (or drop) variables 'distance' through 'a9', inclusive.

 

Space or comma delimited lists of conditions can be entered at one time.  For example:

 

        factor1,cluster,a2-a10,L1*

 

followed by a click on the Drop button, will uncheck the variables 'factor1', 'cluster', 'a2' through 'a10', and any variable which starts with the string 'l1'.

 

If needed, you can successively refine your selection by entering conditions and then clicking on either the Drop or Keep buttons, or, alternatively, by manually checking or unchecking variables in the list box.

 

Variable Selection Indicator

Select all of the variables you want to transfer.  When you have finished, you can click on the Transfer tab at the top of the dialog box and you will return to the Transfer dialog box, where you will see a message telling you how many variables have been selected.