Using an Automatic Batch Facility Profile

If there are IBM® SPSS® Statistics commands that you want to run every time you run the Batch Facility (for example, SET commands), you can put them into a file named profile.sps on Windows and .profile.sps on UNIX. This file is a simple text file that contains the command syntax that you want to execute every time you start the Batch Facility. The Batch Facility looks for profile.sps in the same directory from which the Batch Facility is run.

Figure 1. Example of a .profile.sps file

SET
 PRINTBACK OFF
 MESSAGES OFF
 EPOCH=1948
 LENGTH=24
 HEADER=NONE.

The commands in the example do the following:

  • PRINTBACK OFF prevents command syntax from appearing in text output.
  • MESSAGES OFF prevents summary messages (for example, the number of commands processed) from appearing in text output.
  • EPOCH=1948 defines the starting year of a 100-year span for two-digit dates.
  • LENGTH=24 sets the maximum page length to 24 lines.
  • HEADER=NONE suppresses headings in text output and starts a new page where the header would have appeared.