Unlike raw data files and SPSS command files, SPSS system files contain a lot of information that is system-specific. Thus, they cannot be moved to another machine running SPSS as they are. You can either move the files that created the data set and recreate it on the other machine, or you can create an SPSS portable file that contains the data set and all of its descriptive information.

Create the portable file:

The EXPORT command is used to create a portable file:

GET FILE infilename
EXPORT OUTFILE=outfilename
 /TYPE=COMM
 /MAP

Replace infilename with the name of the SPSS data set you want to export. Replace outfilename with the desired name of the portable file.

The TYPE subcommand is telling EXPORT that this file will be transferred using a communications package such as ftp.

The MAP subcommand gives you a list of all the variables that have been written to the portable file.

Move the portable file:

To move the portable file, use your preferred FTP client. A popular choice is WS_FTP if you are moving between your PC and another computer.

The portable file must be transferred in ASCII mode.

Recreate the data set:

Regardless of which machine you moved the portable file to, use the following to recreate the data set:

IMPORT FILE='fullpathname'
 /MAP.

Substitute the full path and name of the portable file in place of fullpathname. For example, if test.por was put in the My Documents folder in Windows 95, 'fullpathname' would read 'C:\My Documents\test.por'.

Once again, the MAP subcommand will produce a list of variables that were imported from the portable file.