*(Q) I have string variables containg numbers. These numbers are ascii characters in group of 2. Case #1 below is actually 79 80 69 78 etc. The corresponding letters are "OPEN". *(A) Posted to SPSS newsgroup by Bjarte Aagnes on 2002/02/27 Hi, here is a variant, building on Braner's and Fry's contributions. DATA LIST /mystr (A30). BEGIN DATA. 7980697832697868 6578798472698232838482737871 END DATA. COMP #adj=0. LOOP #pos = 1 TO 30 by 2. COMP SUB(mystr,#pos-#adj,1)=STRING(NUMBER(SUB(mystr,#pos,2),N2),PIB1). COMP #adj=#adj+1. END LOOP. LIST.