For instance, part of the boys' data will look like this (grades are in German notation, where 1 means A, and 5 means F): Thus you have two files with different cases, but identical variables.

Let's suppose you have grades in maths for the boys and the girls in your class, but these are in different files. What ADDing files means can be shown by a simple example. If there are more than ten files, you just have to write more than one ADD FILE command. Up to ten files can be ADDed in one step by contatenating them with backslashes each file will be stacked below the others. Then the simple example from the first section will do its job. More specifically, this is the case if the structure of the files you wish to add indeed are identical (more on this below). rename (var17 var23a var300 = v17 v23a var301a )Īs explained in the introduction, adding files is normally a very simple operation. Simple example for MATCHing files: MATCH FILEĬomplex example for MATCHing files: MATCH FILE Simple example for ADDing files: ADD FILE

This case may be very simple as well – see the first example on MATCHing below –, but sometimes necessitates (or allows) to deal with quite sophisticated problems. MATCHing these files often means that you will deal with the same cases as before, but you will have more information (more variables) about them. You may MATCH two files that contain the same cases (at least in part), but have different variables. This case usually is rather simple for instance, you may have the same sort of data for several school classes and wish to have them in a single file. ADDing files means that all cases previously in separate files will end up in one file that is, the resulting file will have more cases, but very often not more variables. You may ADD two or more files that (usually) contain different cases, but have at least partly the same variables.

Merging files can mean two different things.

Merge datasets in spss code