Merge Data Files Utility

[NJRedSox]

Dear All,

I'm in the process of merging data that was collected on different computers via MediaLab's merge utility. I've successfully added the files to be merged, and ran the utility. The resulting output was a *.txt file.

What is the best way to read this into SPSS?

-Nick

[jarvis24]

Through SPSS's import data function (on SPSS's File menu?). You would indicate that the variables are delimited by commas while going through the import. You could also rename it as a .csv file and open it in Excel, save it an .xls file and then import it. Does that help?

[NJRedSox]

I ran the 'Read Text Data' command from the main menu of SPSS.

I indicated that the variables were delimited, and that the first case of data begins on line 2 since line 1 are the variable names. However, when progressing through each step of reading text data, the data is no where close to being read in correctly.

In terms of your second option of saving it as a *.csv file and opening it in Excel and importing it, we've done this before but it is labor intensive.

What ultimately is holding us up is that when we ran an experiment for a clinical trial, we saved each file that MediaLab wrote out individually. We did this to offset the possibility of the data becoming corrupt.

I know that many users simply run an experiment, and by virtue of the way MediaLab was designed, each subject's data is aggregated into one file, making it easy to read into SPSS.

However, we have individual Excel files for each person. Any thoughts on the best way to address this issue?

-Nick

[jarvis24]

Can you attach a zipped folder of data csv data files that I can examine here?