DISCRETIZATION Subcommand (CATPCA command)

DISCRETIZATION specifies fractional-value variables that you want to discretize. Also, you can use DISCRETIZATION for ranking or for two ways of recoding categorical variables.

• A string variable’s values are always converted into positive integers, according to the internal numeric representations. DISCRETIZATION for string variables applies to these integers.
• When the DISCRETIZATION subcommand is omitted or used without a variable list, fractional-value variables are converted into positive integers by grouping them into seven categories with a distribution of close to “normal.”
• When no specification is given for variables in a variable list following DISCRETIZATION, these variables are grouped into seven categories with a distribution of close to “normal.”
• In CATPCA, values that are less than 1 are considered to be missing (see MISSING subcommand). However, when discretizing a variable, values that are less than 1 are considered to be valid and are thus included in the discretization process.

GROUPING. Recode into the specified number of categories or recode intervals of equal size into categories.

RANKING. Rank cases. Rank 1 is assigned to the case with the smallest value on the variable.

MULTIPLYING. Multiply the standardized values of a fractional-value variable by 10, round, and add a value such that the lowest value is 1.