Converting an Edat file into either a .xls or .txt file

[Daniel]

I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I like the column/row format that the Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a format I like using spss syntax. Is there a faster way to convert all of these subject files into the excel format, some sort of way to iterate over all files in a folder, instead of having to open each one and export them separately?

Thanks.

[Paul Groot]

try E-Merge...

paul

On 9 February 2013 00:49, Daniel <schizoph...@gmail.com> wrote:

I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I like the column/row format that the Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a format I like using spss syntax. Is there a faster way to convert all of these subject files into the excel format, some sort of way to iterate over all files in a folder, instead of having to open each one and export them separately?

Thanks.

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[Daniel]

Is there a way to do this that keeps each subject file separate?

[Paul Groot]

I don't think e-prime provides such an option by itself, but personally I would split the merged file using a small matlab script. Hoever, I'm sure there are many other way's to do that (e.g. perl, awk, C++, Visual Basic, ...)

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/e-prime/-/60ieSH50aEUJ.

[David McFarlane]

Or even an Excel macro (which I guess is just another way of saying
VBA), after merging the data and exporting it to Excel. (I have written
such macros myself, feasible but not trivial.)

-- David McFarlane

Paul Groot wrote:
> I don't think e-prime provides such an option by itself, but personally
> I would split the merged file using a small matlab script. Hoever, I'm
> sure there are many other way's to do that (e.g. perl, awk, C++, Visual
> Basic, ...)
>
> On 9 February 2013 01:01, Daniel <schizoph...@gmail.com

[Paul Groot]

or even en eprime-basic!  Excel struggles with large merged files....

On 11 February 2013 14:49, David McFarlane <mcfa...@msu.edu> wrote:

Or even an Excel macro (which I guess is just another way of saying VBA), after merging the data and exporting it to Excel.  (I have written such macros myself, feasible but not trivial.)

-- David McFarlane


Paul Groot wrote:

I don't think e-prime provides such an option by itself, but personally I would split the merged file using a small matlab script. Hoever, I'm sure there are many other way's to do that (e.g. perl, awk, C++, Visual Basic, ...)

On 9 February 2013 01:01, Daniel <schizoph...@gmail.com <mailto:schizophrenicdan@gmail.com>> wrote:

    Is there a way to do this that keeps each subject file separate?


    On Friday, February 8, 2013 6:50:52 PM UTC-5, Paul Groot wrote:

        try E-Merge...

        paul

        On 9 February 2013 00:49, Daniel <schizoph...@gmail.com> wrote:

            I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I
            like the column/row format that the Excel export option that
            E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a
            format I like using spss syntax. Is there a faster way to
            convert all of these subject files into the excel format,
            some sort of way to iterate over all files in a folder,
            instead of having to open each one and export them separately?

            Thanks.

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[Daniel]

Yeah, I will probably just end up splitting it using a SPSS syntax script (I am not very familiar with Matlab yet), it will be a little bit tedious but faster than doing it manually.

Thanks for the input.

[Cognitology]

Hi,

If you’re not YET doing it, I urge you to have another look at what is possible with e-DataAid. The reason is that I know many students 1) know SPSS fairly well, and a bit of Excel, and try to avoid E-***. Not saying that counts for you as well. Indeed, this is a bit of a shot in the dark, but with such sentences as “I have a large number of subject edat files (500+) and I like the column/row format that the Excel export option that E-DataAid uses so that I can easily convert the data into a format I like using spss syntax”, it’s difficult to avoid guessing! You might want to say something about what you’re planning to do, but in its absence, let’s have an example from my own life, and maybe it helps?

·         What I like is having a good amount of Repeated Measures ANOVA style formatted columns, say, RTs of 2x4 conditions, one row per subject. For SPSS. What I have is 500 .edats. Arggh, right?

1.       We merge all files to one big .emrg, which we then open in .edat

2.       We filter out those RTs we are not interested in, say, the ones in which an error occurs. Also, I don’t like trials 1:20.

3.       Now, we go to analyze, drag Subject to the Row, and any type of between-subject variable (sex, age, etc).

4.       Then drag ConditionP1vs2 to columns, drag ConditionQ1vs2vs3vs4 to columns. Drag the critical RT thing to the Data bit. Press Run.

5.       So, we should see a nice table of at least 500x8. Oops, it’s got two decimals.. why? Make that 4. Select all of it, copy the bunch to excel.

6.       Inside excel, underneath the two rows with variables (rows A and B), insert a new row (say C). Enter the wonderful formula =A&”_”&B and drag it all across row C.

7.       Select row C, copy, go stand in an empty bit, paste special: values only, and transpose. Copy that, go to SPSS, paste in variables: now, that’s descriptive indeed.

8.       Copy all the values over to SPSS (but you’ll have to reassign string values from numeric for some columns).

 

These 8 steps, lengthy as they may seem, take me about 2 minutes, and I think it’s a great workflow.

TLDR? Try E-DataAid, it’s ridiculously simple, really rocks, and SPSS is best avoided as they make it slower and buggier with every next release.

 

PS: Paul, I find Excel not at all slow with large data-files? Much faster than SPSS, at least, or at least it has been between excel 2007 and 2010 (2013 beta was running very slow here); it does not cope very well with large and lengthy formulas that need repeated recalculation and take up more than hundreds of MBs, though.

 

Best,

Michiel

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[Paul Groot]

You're right. E-DataAid features are often overlooked.

Perhaps I was not clear about Excel: I meant that Excel has serious problems with many rows or columns. Although I think newer versions of Excel do a much better job now, so this might not be a problem for many users.

paul

[David McFarlane]

I too will beat the drum for E-Merge &
E-DataAid. For some years now I have said that
it is almost worth getting E-Prime for its superb
data handling facilities alone! No other
psychology programming platform compares in this
regard, no matter what other shortcomings E-Prime may have.

Sadly, it took me many years to discover this --
like many, I too initially treated E-DataAid as
nothing more than a tool to export data to Excel
or SPSS. I did not realize the full value myself
until a lab asked me to give them a tutorial on
E-Merge & E-DataAid, and when I finally went
through the manuals I was surprised!

So work through *all* of the E-Merge and
E-DataAid tutorials in the User's Guide and
Reference Guide that come with E-Prime, you will
find it *well* worth your trouble. You might
also look through Michiel et al.'s "The
E-Primer". Finally (shameless self-promotion
here), I devote an entire lesson of my online
video course to just this topic, with a guided
exercise to show much of what Michiel described.

-----
David McFarlane
E-Prime training
online: http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx
Twitter: @EPrimeMaster (https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster)

At 2/15/2013 10:03 AM Friday, Paul Groot wrote:
>You're right. E-DataAid features are often overlooked.
>
>Perhaps I was not clear about Excel: I meant
>that Excel has serious problems with many rows
>or columns. Although I think newer versions of
>Excel do a much better job now, so this might not be a problem for many users.
>
>paul
>
>On 13 February 2013 14:27, Cognitology

[Daniel]

You're absolutely right and it does seem that there are more things I can do with E-DataAid than I realized. I should have been more specific about what I had in mind, but the data conversions I run with spss syntax tend to be extensive and I was too lazy to type them out. The methods that you suggested below will really help with some of my other data sets that need less conversions, thank you. The conversions I needed to do involved generating probabilities for a bunch of different numbers (and the format of the E-DataAid file was less user friendly, but that was because of how the task was put together in E-Prime) and then some of my other datasets I create distributional plots of accuracy (or other things) by reaction time and plot between 5-9 cells of 20+ RT scores or more. So, generally I think I need to use either SPSS syntax or Matlab to do this stuff (though I am sure Excel could do it too).

I did find a fairly easy way to split after having used e-merge and then converting it to an excel document in E-Dataid. I then opened the data in excel and got rid of any columns I did not care about and then opened it in SPSS. I used the SPSS programmability extension and then installed a custom dialog called "SPSSINC_SPLIT_DATASET.spd" which you can get on the IBM spss DeveloperWorks website and it easily will split the file by whatever variables and spit out the data with any names you want. Then I just ran my script (that calculates probability, generates ACC, etc.) using "SPSSINC_PROCESS_FILES.spd" which allowed me to iterate over all subject files in a folder and spit out the data into a database. 

[Daniel]

I will definitely look at those resources.