SPSS Statistics 17 Extension Commands
JKPeck
extension commands available for SPSS Statistics 17. These are
commands that act like built-in SPSS commands and most of which have a
dialog box interface. But these are add-ons from SPSS Developer
Central making use of the Python and/or R plugin modules.
Since some of these may be of interest to this list, I have copied the
summary message here as well. Apologies to those who are subscribed
to the other list.
Regards,
Jon Peck
This message is a summary of the new extension commands for SPSS
Statistics 17. All of these can now be downloaded from SPSS Developer
Central (www.spss.com/devcentral). They all require the Python Plug-
In. The R extensions also require the R Plug-In from Developer
Central and R 2.7.0. For the R extensions, you must also install a
patch to SPSS Statistics 17. Details are in the readme file with each
package.
Besides providing standard SPSS syntax, most of these commands have a
dialog box interface, including Help. Once installed, the syntax and
dialog are automatically available in every SPSS Statistics session.
You can find the Plug-Ins by following the Plugins Download Page link
on the main Developer Central page The Python Plug-In is also on the
SPSS Statistics 17 installation CD.
You can download the individual extension command zip files and
install as per the readme.txt instructions in each zip. If you want
to look on Developer Central specifically for extension commands, go
to the Downloads link. Then in the Filter field at the top, choose
Extension Commands and click the Filter Downloads button. I like to
select Single Page View also. Here’s the list of what’s new.
– SPSSINC HETCOR: polychoric and serial correlation (R)
– SPSSINC ROBUST REGR: robust regression using M estimators (R)
– SPSSINC QUANTREG: quantile regression (R)
– SPSSINC TOBIT REGR: Tobit truncated regression (R)
– SPSSINC APRIORI: association rules (R)
– SPSSINC RASCH: Rasch models (R)
– SPSSINC COMPARE DATASETS: compare dictionary and/or data in
two open SPSS datasets
– SPSSINC MODIFY TABLE: fancy formatting for pivot tables
– SPSSINC MODIFY OUTPUT: outline and item title and heading
modifications, including formatting and sequence numbering
– SPSSINC MERGE TABLES: combine two pivot tables in the Viewer
There are quite a few other extension commands that work with older
versions and that can also be used with SPSS Statistics 17.
Altogether, there are 18 commands posted. There is one more R-based
extension command that is nearly complete and will be posted soon.
These materials are provided as is, but we hope that you find them
useful. If you write your own extension commands, consider
contributing ones of general interest. We invite comments and
suggestions on the Dev Central forums. I’d also like to thank my SPSS
colleagues who have written or helped with these commands and the
development teams that built the underlying extension and plug-in
framework.
Check back with Developer Central from time to time for updates and
additional offerings.
Regards,
Jon K. Peck
SPSS Inc.
pe...@spss.com
(ip) phone 312-651-3435
Bruce Weaver
> On the other SPSS list (SPSSX-L) I have been writing about the new
> extension commands available for SPSS Statistics 17. These are
> commands that act like built-in SPSS commands and most of which have a
> dialog box interface. But these are add-ons from SPSS Developer
> Central making use of the Python and/or R plugin modules.
>
> Since some of these may be of interest to this list, I have copied the
> summary message here as well. Apologies to those who are subscribed
> to the other list.
>
> Regards,
> Jon Peck
--- snip ---
Thanks Jon. Will these extensions work in earlier versions
(provided that the plugin modules are supported)?
--
Bruce Weaver
bwe...@lakeheadu.ca
http://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/
"When all else fails, RTFM."
JKPeck
> JKPeck wrote:
> > On the other SPSS list (SPSSX-L) I have been writing about the new
> > extension commands available for SPSS Statistics 17. These are
> > commands that act like built-in SPSS commands and most of which have a
> > dialog box interface. But these are add-ons from SPSS Developer
> > Central making use of the Python and/or R plugin modules.
>
> > Since some of these may be of interest to this list, I have copied the
> > summary message here as well. Apologies to those who are subscribed
> > to the other list.
>
> > Regards,
> > Jon Peck
>
> --- snip ---
>
> Thanks Jon. Will these extensions work in earlier versions
> (provided that the plugin modules are supported)?
>
> --
> Bruce Weaver
> "When all else fails, RTFM."
Not in general. First, the Custom Dialog Builder is new in version
17, so none of the user interface parts of these commands will work in
earlier versions.
Second, the R modules rely on the ability to have nested program
blocks. That is possible to a limited extent in version 16, but that
feature is only fully operational in 17.
Third, the commands like SPSSINC MODIFY TABLES, SPSSINC MODIFY OUTPUT,
and SPSSINC MERGE TABLES rely on the unification of programs and
scripting that was done for version 17.
Finally, the command names are all multi-word in order to minimize
confusion in the extension command namespace. However, you could
rename these commands easily by changing the implementation filenames
and the command name in the xml syntax file.
It is only with version 17 that we have all of the building blocks in
place for the initiative we started with version 14 for building
facilities such as these. While there is a lot of value in what can
be done with the older versions, only version 17 has the complete
infrastructure.
There are many extension commands available that work with 16, and
there are lots of programmability modules and functions that work with
14 and 15. The core modules such as spssaux and spssdata still work
with those versions. These remain available on Developer Central.
Regards,
Jon