VARIABLES Subcommand (DETECTANOMALY command)

The VARIABLES subcommand specifies the variables to be used in the procedure. If the CATEGORICAL option or the SCALE option are specified, then variables that are listed in these options are used in the analysis. If neither the CATEGORICAL option nor the SCALE option is specified, then all variables in the active dataset are used, except the variable specified in the ID option and those in the EXCEPT option, if any. In the latter situation, the dictionary setting of each variable determines its measurement level. The procedure treats ordinal and nominal variables equivalently as categorical.

CATEGORICAL=varlist. List of categorical variables. If this option is specified, at least one variable must be listed. Variables in the list can be numeric or string. They are treated as categorical variables and are used in the analysis. If duplicate variables are specified in the list, the duplicates are ignored. After the EXCEPT option (if specified) is applied, if there are variables also specified in either the continuous list or as an ID variable, an error is issued. TO and ALL keywords may be used.

SCALE=varlist . List of continuous variables. If this option is specified, at least one variable must be listed. Variables in the list must be numeric and are used in the analysis. If duplicate variables are specified in the list, the duplicates are ignored. After the EXCEPT option (if specified) is applied, if there are variables also specified in either the categorical list or as an ID variable, an error is issued. TO and ALL keywords may be used.

ID=variable. Case ID variable. If this option is specified, one variable must be listed. The variable can be numeric or string. It is used as a unique identifier for the cases in the data file and is not used in the analysis. If this option is not specified, the case number of the active dataset is used as the identifier variable. If the identifier variable is specified in either the categorical list or continuous list, an error is issued.

EXCEPT=varlist. List of variables that are excluded from the analysis. If this option is specified, at least one variable must be listed. Variables in the list are not used in the analysis, even if they are specified in the continuous or categorical lists. This option ignores duplicate variables and variables that are not specified on the continuous or categorical list. Specifying the ALL keyword causes an error. The TO keyword may be used. This option can be useful if the categorical list or continuous list contains a large number of variables but there are a few variables that should be excluded.