User Guide

133
Data Transform
ations

Date and time functions
 Distribution functions
 Random variable functions
 Missing value functions
 Scoring functions (SPSS Server only)
Search for
functions in the online Help system index for a complete list of functions.
Missing Values in Functions
Functions and simple arithmetic expressions treat missing values in different ways.
In the expression:
(var1+var2
+var3)/3
the result is missing if a case has a missing value for any of the three variables.
In the expression:
MEAN(var1, var2, var3)
the result i
s missing only if the case has missing values for all three variables.
For statist
ical functions, you can specify the minimum number of arguments that
must have nonmissing values. To do so, type a period and the minimum number
after the function name, as in:
MEAN.2(var
1, var2, var3)
Random Number Generators
The Random Number Generators dialog box allows you to select the random number
generator
and set the starting sequence value so you can reproduce a sequence of
random numbers.