User Guide

148
Chapter 7

The new variable(s) created by Automatic Recode retain any defined variable and
value label
s from the old variable. For any values without a defined value label,
the original value is used as the label for the recoded value. A table displays the
old and new values and value labels.
 String values are recoded in alphabetical order, with uppercase letters preceding
their lower
case counterparts.
 Missing va
lues are recoded into missing values higher than any nonmissing
values, with their order preserved. For example, if the original variable has 10
nonmissing values, the lowest missing value would be recoded to 11, and the
value 11 wo
uld be a missing value for the new variable.
Use the sam
e recoding scheme for all variables.
This option allows you to apply a
single autorecoding scheme to all the selected variables, yielding a consistent coding
scheme for all the new variables.
If you select this option, the following rules and limitations apply:
 Allvariablesmustbeofthesametype(numericorstring).
 All observed values for all selected variables are used to create a sorted order of
values to recode into sequential integers.
 User-missing values for the new variables are based on the first variable in the list
with defi
ned user-missing values. All other values from other original variables,
except for system-missing, are treated as valid.
Treat blank string values as user-missing. For string variables, blank or null values are
not treat
ed as system-missing. This option will autorecode blank strings into a
user-missing value higher than the highest non-missing value.
Templat
es
You c an s
ave the autorecoding scheme in a template file and then apply it to other
variables and other data files.
For example, you may have a large number of alphanumeric product codes that you
autorec
ode into integers every month, but some months new product codes are added
that change the original autorecoding scheme. If you save the original scheme in a
template and then apply it to the new data that contain the new set of codes, any new