SPSS Programming and Data Management, 4th Edition: A Guide for ...

25GettingDataintoSPSS• TYPE=ODBC indicates that an ODBC driver will be used to read the data. This isrequired for reading data from any database, and it can also be used for other datasources with ODBC drivers, such as Excel workbooks. For more information, seeReading Multiple Worksheets on p. 32.• CONNECT identifies the data source. For this example, the CONNECT string wascopied from the command syntax generated by the Database Wizard. The entirestring must be enclosed in single or double quotes. In this example, we have splitthe long string onto two lines using a plus sign (+) to combine the two strings.• The SQL subcommand can contain any SQL statements supported by the databaseformat. Each line must be enclosed in single or double quotes.• SELECT * FROM CombinedTable reads all of the fields (columns) and allrecords (rows) from the table named CombinedTable in the database.• Any field names that are not valid SPSS variable names are automaticallyconverted to valid variable names, and the original field names are used as variablelabels. In this database table, many of the field names contain spaces, which areremoved in the variable names.Figure 3-1Database field names converted to valid variable namesExampleNow we’ll read the same database table—except this time, we’ll read only a subset offields and records.*access2.sps.