FROM Subcommand (APPLY DICTIONARY command)

FROM specifies an external IBM® SPSS® Statistics data file or an open dataset as the source file whose dictionary information is to be applied to the active dataset.

  • FROM is required.
  • Only one IBM SPSS Statistics data file or open dataset (including the active dataset) can be specified on FROM.
  • The file specification should be enclosed in quotation marks.
  • The active dataset can be specified in the FROM subcommand by using an asterisk (*) as the value. File-based dictionary information (FILEINFO subcommand) is ignored when the active dataset is used as the source file.

PASSWORD Keyword

The PASSWORD keyword specifies the password required to open an encrypted IBM SPSS Statistics data file. The specified value must be enclosed in quotation marks and can be provided as encrypted or as plain text. Encrypted passwords are created when pasting command syntax from the Save Data As dialog. The PASSWORD keyword is ignored if the file is not encrypted.

Example

APPLY DICTIONARY FROM "lastmonth.sav".
  • This will apply variable information from lastmonth.sav to matching variables in the active dataset.
  • The default variable information applied from the source file includes variable labels, value labels, missing values, level of measurement, alignment, column width (for Data Editor display), and print and write formats.
  • If weighting is on in the source dataset and a matching weight variable exists in the active (target) dataset, weighting by that variable is turned on in the active dataset. No other file information (documents, file label, multiple response sets) from the source file is applied to the active dataset.