Simple Merge Revisited; Perplexed by seemingly "easy" program.

[Greenbaum, Mark A.]

This simple program is not working. Each is a PSPP data set with 30 observations, and there are no duplicate PatientIDs within each dataset.  The PatientIDs match one-to one between each dataset (each PatientID in Condition.Sav appears once in Score.sav).  Please note that line numbers below are for reference only and do not appear in the program.

 

I can open each data set individually; that is, if I run only lines 1 and 2, Condition.sav opens, and if I then open lines 3 and 4 dataset Score.sav opens.

HOWEVER, when I open Score.sav, Condition.sav no longer appears, apparently replaced by Score.sav.  

When I run the entire program, the merge doesn’t work, and I just see Score.sav.  My hunch is that Condition.sav is being replaced by Score.sav and is no longer “active” for the merge.  In fact, I get these two error messages:

1. error: An error occurred while opening `Condition.sav': No such file or directory.

2. C:\Users\Mynamw\Desktop\PSPP SYNTAX 1.sps.1: error: `Condition.sav' is not a system or portable file.

 

How do I fix this problem so that Condition.sav and Score.sav will merge?  Thank you very much!

 

1. GET  FILE= "C:\Users\Myname\Desktop\Condition.sav"
2. SORT CASES BY PatientID(A).

 

3. GET  FILE= "C:\Users\Myname\Desktop\Score.sav"
4. SORT CASES BY PatientID(A).

 

5. MATCH FILES FILE="Condition.sav"
6. /FILE="Score.sav"
7. /BY PatientID
8. /MAP.

 

SAVE OUTFILE="C:\Users\Myname\Desktop\merged data set.sav".