Overview (DATASET DISPLAY command)

The DATASET commands (DATASET NAME, DATASET ACTIVATE, DATASET DECLARE, DATASET COPY, DATASET CLOSE) provide the ability to have multiple data sources open at the same time and control which open data source is active at any point in the session. Using defined dataset names, you can then:

• Merge data (for example, MATCH FILES, ADD FILES, UPDATE) from multiple different source types (for example, text data, database, spreadsheet) without saving each one as an external IBM® SPSS® Statistics data file first.
• Create new datasets that are subsets of open data sources (for example, males in one subset, females in another, people under a certain age in another, or original data in one set and transformed/computed values in another subset).
• Copy and paste variables, cases, and/or variable properties between two or more open data sources in the Data Editor.

The DATASET DISPLAY command displays a list of currently available datasets. The only specification is the command name DATASET DISPLAY.