Re: st: How to read a very old SPSS file?

["Michael N. Mitchell" <Michael.Norman.Mitchell@gmail.com>]

Dear Stephen

  I fret that this may be a bordeline hopeless situation. When I was back at UCLA working 
on our mainframe version of SPSS, we encountered situations like this frequently. The SPSS 
binary file in EBCDIC format needs to be read using an IBM mainframe version of SPSS. 
Converting the binary file into ASCII does not aid in the reading of the file, and all it 
really does is mangle the file. You can see in the -hexdump- command that a majority of 
the characters are not really ASCII characters.

  If it was a matter of life and death to read this file, there are two ways I can 
imagine doing reading this file...

  1) finding a place that has SPSS running on an IBM mainframe and ask them to convert 
the file into an SPSS portable (.por) file. The EBCDIC file would need to be transferred, 
and if you use FTP be sure to use BINARY transfer protocol. That could then be read by a 
modern version of SPSS or probably Stat/Transfer. It is possible that SPSS may still have 
such a computer, or be able to refer you to someone who owns one.

  2) Locate a document that describes the exact IBM mainframe file format of the SPSS 
file and write a program that reads the file, byte by byte, acconting for the EBCDIC 
format. In short, you would be writing your own version of Stat/Transfer specifically for 
reading IBM mainframe SPSS EBCDIC files.

I hope this helps,

Best luck!

Michael N. Mitchell
Data Management Using Stata      - http://www.stata.com/bookstore/dmus.html
A Visual Guide to Stata Graphics - http://www.stata.com/bookstore/vgsg.html
Stata tidbit of the week         - http://www.MichaelNormanMitchell.com



On 2011-02-04 2.48 PM, S.Jenkins@lse.ac.uk wrote:
> I have a file which was originally written in SPSS binary data file format in around 1980 onto magnetic tape from which the file image has been taken. The original file was in EBCDIC format written by an IBM computer or clone thereof. I have also converted the file to ASCII format using UltraEdit's built-in converter.   I don't have access to any version of SPSS nowadays.  This is the only copy remaining of a historic data set.
>
> I want to read these data into Stata (of course!). Tips please.
>
> Tried so far (using the ascii format version of the file):
>
> * Stat/Transfer version 10 conversion failed: "Processing SPSS dataset dictionary was stopped because of the error (3)"
> * SPSS version 6 (c. 1989): a former colleague tried reading with this and it failed
>
> In case it's useful, here is a hexdump from the file, derived using Stata's -hexdump- command:
>
> ======================================================
> . hexdump iserdump1_ue.txt , analyze
>
>   Line-end characters                        Line length (tab=1)
>     \r\n         (Windows)              2      minimum        0
>     \r by itself (Mac)                599      maximum   21,074
>     \n by itself (Unix)             1,077
>   Space/separator characters                 Number of lines    1,679
>     [blank]                         2,964      EOL at EOF?       no
>     [tab]                           1,749
>     [comma] (,)                     1,260    Length of first 5 lines
>   Control characters                           Line 1      615
>     binary 0                    2,574,907      Line 2        3
>     CTL excl. \r, \n, \t          252,933      Line 3      973
>     DEL                               947      Line 4      525
>     Extended (128-159,255)        106,948      Line 5      989
>   ASCII printable
>     A-Z                            99,890
>     a-z                            21,142    File format   BINARY
>     0-9                             8,824
>     Special (!@#$ etc.)           142,054
>     Extended (160-254)            231,999
>                           ---------------
>   Total                         3,447,297
>
>   Observed were:
>      \0 ^A ^B ^C ^D ^E ^F ^G ^H \t \n ^K ^L \r ^N ^O ^P ^Q ^R ^S ^T ^U ^V ^W
>      ^X ^Y ^Z Esc 28 29 30 31 blank ! " # $ %&  ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5
>      6 7 8 9 : ;<  =>  ? @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y
>      Z [ \ ] ^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | }
>      ~ DEL 128 E^A E^B E^C E^D E^F E^G E^H E^I E^J E^K E^L E^M E^N E^O E^P
>      E^Q E^R E^S E^T E^U E^V E^W E^X E^Y E^Z 155 156 157 158 160 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦
>      § ¨ © ª « ¬ ­ ® ¯ ° ± ² ³ ´ µ ¶ . ¸ ¹ º » ¼ ½ ¾ ¿ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê
>      Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Ö × Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ
>      ò ó ô õ ö ÷ ø ù ú û ü ý þ 255
>
> ======================================================
>
> Thanks
> Stephen
> -------------------------------------
> Stephen P. Jenkins<s.jenkins@lse.ac.uk>
> Department of Social Policy and STICERD/CASE
> London School of Economics and Political Science
> Houghton Street
> London WC2A 2AE, U.K.
> Tel. +44 (0)20 7955 6527
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