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 Case marked as missing from tabled file when matching original file and tabling in new file

Lee Owen's profile image
Lee Owen posted Fri October 10, 2025 11:25 AM

Hello,

When running match files using a table command, data from the tabled file is missing for a case, even though the by variable exists in both original file and tabled file.

Example;

sort cases by ParGrpID.
match files
    /file=*
    /table="Family_File_ParGrpIDsort_2025-08-07.sav"/in=famfile
    /by ParGrpID/map.
execute.

The tabled file (Family_File_ParGrpIDsort_2025-08-07.sav) contains a family ID, which I want to add, as well as the original matching variable, ParGrpID. The variable ParGrpID exists in both files, and famID exists only in the tabled file. For some reason it drops a case from the tabled file. The value for famfile is 0 for the dropped case, even though ParGrpID exists and is formatted the same in both files. The mapping shows that family ID is contributed by the second, tabled file, and indeed works for all the other cases. I've worked with SPSS for years, and have never seen this happen before.

Thoughs or ideas? Thanks! Lee

Jon Peck's profile image
Jon Peck IBM Champion

I suspect that the value of the case with id =0, assuming that id is numeric, isn't exactly zero in one or both of the files.  Set the number of decimals to 16 to see the full value.