*(Q) I have a string variable containing items such as 
 100 billion
 250 million
 7 billion
 I need to convert these to numbers.

*I also have strings containing numbers with commas, I need to
	convert them to numbers.
*(A) Posted to SPSSX-List by Raynald Levesque on 2003/04/02.


DATA LIST FIXED /revenue 1-14(A) empl 15-20(A).
BEGIN DATA
100 billion   10,500
250 million      500
7 billion      7,000
END DATA.

COMPUTE #pos=INDEX(UPCASE(revenue),'BILLION').
IF #pos>0 revenue2=NUMBER(SUBSTR(revenue,1,#pos - 1),F8)*1000000000.
COMPUTE #pos=INDEX(UPCASE(revenue),'MILLION').
IF #pos>0 revenue2=NUMBER(SUBSTR(UPCASE(revenue),1,#pos - 1),F8)*1000000.

COMPUTE empl2=NUMBER(empl,COMMA8).
EXECUTE.

* Note that if billion or million are misspelled, the corresponding value of 
	revenu2 will be missing, review any such cases.