* QUESTION in SPSS newsgroup 2001/03/17. *Does anyone know how to get SPSS to sort the variables in an SPSS *FREQUENCIES (output) table? In some procedures, such as DESCRIPTIVE, *you can write this directly into the command syntax -- but I don't see *how to do this in FREQUENCIES. I am using FREQUENCIES, because this *procedure includes calculation of the median among the options *(DESCRIPTIVE does not). I would like to analyze about 100 variables *(mean, SD, skewness, kurtosis, minimum, maximum, median), with the *resultant table arranged in descending order of the means. * ANSWER by rlevesque@videotron.ca. * This syntax sort variables in order of median, then call FREQ with the variables in that order. * Because of the limit on the number of variables, this syntax only works when there are less than 32,768 cases (that's 2^15 cases). SET MPRINT=yes /PRINTBACK=yes. * This is the macro which does the job. *////////////////////////////////////. DEFINE !median(!POS=!CMDEND) COMPUTE dummy=1. MATCH FILES FILE=* /BY dummy /KEEP=!1. XSAVE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\temp.sav'. * Count number of variables, assign number to a macro. FLIP. COMPUTE dummy=1. RANK VARIABLES=dummy /N INTO n. DO IF $CASENUM=1. WRITE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\define nbvar.sps' / 'DEFINE !nbvar()' n '!ENDDEFINE'. END IF. EXECUTE. GET FILE='c:\\temp\\temp.sav'. INCLUDE FILE='c:\\temp\\define nbvar.sps'. * Purpose of next 3 commands is to add a case were all variables have missing values. COMPUTE dummy=1. AGGREGATE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\aggr.sav' /BREAK=dummy /n=N(dummy). ADD FILES FILE='c:\\temp\\aggr.sav' /IN=aggfile /FILE=* /BY dummy. *Replace missing values by median, drop unneeded variables and cases. RMV m1 TO !CONCAT('m',!EVAL(!nbvar))=MEDIAN(!1, ALL). SELECT IF aggfile=1. MATCH FILES FILE=* /BY=aggfile /DROP=dummy n aggfile. *Assign median values to their related variables . VECTOR v=ALL /m=m1 TO !CONCAT('m',!nbvar). LOOP #cnt=1 TO !nbvar. COMPUTE v(#cnt)=m(#cnt). END LOOP. * Sort median (D), write a macro in a syntax file which gives the list of variables in that order. FLIP VARIABLES=!1 . SORT CASES BY var001 (D). COMPUTE dummy=1. MATCH FILES FILE=* /BY dummy /FIRST=first /LAST=last. DO IF first. WRITE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\list.sps' / 'DEFINE !list()' case_lbl. ELSE if not last. WRITE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\list.sps' / " "case_lbl. ELSE. WRITE OUTFILE='c:\\temp\\list.sps' /" "case_lbl '!ENDDEFINE'. END IF. EXECUTE. * The rest is a piece of cake. GET FILE='c:\\temp\\temp.sav'. INCLUDE FILE='c:\\temp\\list.sps'. FREQUENCIES VARIABLES=!list /STATISTICS=MEAN MEDIAN SKEWNESS SESKEW KURTOSIS SEKURT /ORDER= ANALYSIS . !ENDDEFINE. *////////////////////////////////////. * This is an example of how to use the macro. GET FILE='c:\\program files\\SPSS\\employee data.sav'. !median educ salary TO prevexp.