Text Wizard: Step 3 (Delimited Files)

This step provides information about cases. A case is similar to a record in a database. For example, each respondent to a questionnaire is a case.

The first case of data begins on which line number? Indicates the first line of the data file that contains data values. If the top line(s) of the data file contain descriptive labels or other text that does not represent data values, this will not be line 1.

How are your cases represented? Controls how the Text Wizard determines where each case ends and the next one begins.

• Each line represents a case. Each line contains only one case. It is fairly common for each case to be contained on a single line (row), even though this can be a very long line for data files with a large number of variables. If not all lines contain the same number of data values, the number of variables for each case is determined by the line with the greatest number of data values. Cases with fewer data values are assigned missing values for the additional variables.
• A specific number of variables represents a case. The specified number of variables for each case tells the Text Wizard where to stop reading one case and start reading the next. Multiple cases can be contained on the same line, and cases can start in the middle of one line and be continued on the next line. The Text Wizard determines the end of each case based on the number of values read, regardless of the number of lines. Each case must contain data values (or missing values indicated by delimiters) for all variables, or the data file will be read incorrectly.

How many cases do you want to import? You can import all cases in the data file, the first n cases (n is a number you specify), or a random sample of a specified percentage. Since the random sampling routine makes an independent pseudo-random decision for each case, the percentage of cases selected can only approximate the specified percentage. The more cases there are in the data file, the closer the percentage of cases selected is to the specified percentage.