Moving data from one column to many; Parsing a variable using an SPSS macro

Older online vendor tools and databases would frequently put multi-select questions into one column having a pipe,tab,semicolon or comma delimiter (what was real fun is when they would use a comma for a delimiter in a CSV file).

This can be very problematic in nearly any tool. In this video I demonstrate how easy it can be to move data from one column to many with an SPSS macro.

Move one column to many

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldoPLOFyVAI

Here is the SPSS macro demonstrated in the video:

 
*///////////////.
DEFINE !Parse (Var !TOKENS (1)  / Stem !TOKENS (1) /Del !TOKENS (1))
STRING #(A1000).
VECTOR !Stem(25A500).
COMPUTE #=CONCAT(RTRIM(!Var),!Del).
COMPUTE #cnt=1.
LOOP IF INDEX(#,!Del)>0.
COMPUTE !Stem(#cnt)=SUBSTR(#,1,INDEX(#,!Del)-1).
COMPUTE #cnt=#cnt + 1.
COMPUTE #=SUBSTR(#,INDEX(#,!Del)+1).
Var width !Concat(!Stem,1) to !Concat(!Stem,25) (10).
END LOOP.
EXECUTE.
!ENDDEFINE.
*///////////////.
/* !Parse Var=NAIC_All Stem=NAIC  Del=";".