Re: does the COUNT command count missing values ?

[ftr]

On 20/01/2015 07:01, John Darrington wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 11:08:32PM +0100, ftr wrote:
>       I ask this question as , to my surprise, here the COUNT command
>       does count missing values.
>       
>       missing values v125 to v130 (-9).
>       count missval = v125 to v130 (-9).
>       results in 0 cases for missval.
>       
>       So I reset the missing to a valid code.
>       Recode v125 to v130 (-9=9).
>       count missval = v125 to v130 (9).
>       results in about 66,000 cases without any missings (i.e. values
>       of 9) and in 18,000 with at least one missing.
>       
>       This looks bizarre.
>       
>       Any ideas for these varying results ?
>
> The manual says this:
>
>     User-missing values of test variables are treated just like any other
> values.  They are *not* treated as system-missing values.  User-missing
> values that are criterion values or inside ranges of criterion values
> are counted as any other values.  However (for numeric variables),
> keyword `MISSING' may be used to refer to all system- and user-missing
> values.
>
>
> Are you finding that pspp is doing something different?
I think so.
If I understand the manual well the command should count a user-missing 
value like it counts valid values. This is what I regularly do. But in 
my case it does NOT count the user-missing value (although it is 
present). Only if I recode the missing into a valid value, in my case 9, 
the command works as intended and counts.