Hi richdiesal , thanks for that terrific answer. You've pretty much confimed everything we've discovered this week with newer SPSS 17. It's comforting to know we're not crazy.
I just notice that SPSS recently suspended all v17 evaluation downloads from their website, maybe and hopefully they're fixing a bunch of stuff at once....
I'd like to leave this question open a couple more days maybe get some more valuable opinions. Thanks.
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by: richdiesalPosted on 2008-12-23 at 10:58:07ID: 23235669
For some reason, as of SPSS 16, support for launching anything other than a native SPSS file from the command line became impossible. I have no idea why they would do this - but they did. You can launch SPS, SAV, and SPV files from the command line just fine, but nothing else.
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To get around this, I have tried launching SPS files from the command line. This documentation was a starting point:
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Problem Subject: Where is runsyntx.exe in SPSS 16 and SPSS Statistics 17?
Problem Description: I'm running SPSS 16.0 for Windows (or SPSS Statistics 17). In past versions, the SPSS install included an executable, runsyntx.exe, which would allow me to run syntax files from a command line or batch file. It used to reside in the main SPSS installation directory, but I cannot find this executable anymore. Was it removed or replaced?
Resolution Subject: Please run your syntax from a Production Mode job or via command line using spss.exe.
Resolution Description:
The primary purpose of runsyntx.exe was to be able to right-click on a syntax file in Windows explorer and to have it launch SPSS and run it. While some users may have decided to use it as a part of production jobs, it was not the intended use for runsyntx.exe. In SPSS 16, users can use Production Mode or simply specify a syntax file on the command line.
Available Switches and Options for running spss.exe from a command line:
spss [-server <inet:hostname:port>] [-user <name>] [-password <password>]
[-switchserver]
[-singleseat]
[-nologo]
[-production [silent|prompt]]
[-symbol <values>]
[<filename>] ...
[-help|-h]
Since SPSS Statistics 17, spss.exe was renamed to statistics.exe but you can still use the same command parameters as described above.
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But this creates the problem that you describe - the SPS file simply appears without running. To get around that, I investigated the MAN page in the code snippet.
It looked like there were as a possibility here, but it did not pan out. -production mode simply runs SPSS jobs and then closes SPSS silently.
I even discovered a hidden command line option called -runsyntax, which actually DOES launch SPSS and then (drumroll) run the syntax, however, it immediately closes SPSS afterward.
I tried a number of options to get it to stall out and cancel the closing of SPSS, such as opening a data file in the SPS file, forcing an error in syntax, but nothing worked. SPSS will blanket ignore whatever the syntax file does and then close itself. This might be worth further investigation, but I am out of ideas.
As it looks right now, the only option would be to write a conversion utility to convert between the two formats, and then have SPSS run the converted SAV file from the command line.
Perhaps you could just ask your users to open SPSS on their own? :)
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