Introduction

How to use this document

This document is intended to introduce researchers to SPSS for the UNIX environment.  University Information Technology Services (UITS) at Indiana University, Bloomington has two different Unix operating systems, including Solaris (Sun), and AIX (IBM). To learn more about Unix systems you may use Getting Started with UNIX. You may also enroll in an UITS STEPS or PROSTEPS class by contacting the IT Train ing & Education. Contact a consultant at the UITS Support Center, or at a UITS Student Tech nology Center (STC) if you need help.  Consultants are on duty at most of the UITS sites. If you need help using SPSS from any UITS computers, contact the UITS Stat/Math Center (e-mail: statmath@iu.edu; phone: 812/855-4724 or 317/278-4740).

UITS supports SPSS software on several timesharing UNIX environments: AIX for IBM (Research SP System; nodes aries05), and SUN-Solaris (Steel cluster).  SPSS is also available on UNIX workstations running Solaris (Nations cluster). Graduate students an d staff need a faculty sponsor for accounts on the research-only central systems (aries05).  Undergraduates are only eligible for accounts on Steel and Nations.  If you want to set up an account on any of the timesharing computers contact the UITS Support Center or visit the webpage:

• IUB: Network ID Services
• IUPUI: IUPUI Account Forms

For more information related to the availability of SPSS at IU, please visit the Availability Web page.

Features of SPSS

SPSS comes with a number of add-on modules along with its Base module. These include the Trends, Tables, and Categories modules. From Release 5 onwards, the Graphics module is incorporated into the Base module. Up to Release 5, the Base module also contains the Statistics module. With Release 5 and above, the Statistics module is separate from the Base module and is divided into Advanced Statistics and Professional Statistics. The Base, Trends, Advanced Statistics, Professional Statistics, Tables, and Graphics modules are available on all central Unix systems. Some features of SPSS are listed below.

Data management capabilities include:

• Detailed labeling of variables and data values; additional documentation of data sets; storage of data and documentation in system files.
• Flexible definition of missing data codes.
• Permanent and temporary transformation of existing variables and computation of new variables; conditional and looping structures for complex data transformations.
• Reading raw data files in a wide variety of formats (e.g., numeric, alphanumeric, binary, dollar, date, and time formats).
• Reading hierarchical and other non-rectangular raw data files.
• Reading, combining, outputting multiple files.
• Reading matrices for input to procedures.
• Flip command to switch the columns and rows in a data set.
• Macro facility to build ones own block of SPSS syntax elements and to control the execution of these blocks.
• Ability to read and write to compressed files.

Statistical procedures for data analysis include:

• The EXAMINE procedure to explore data sets before deciding on the course of data analysis to perform.
• Descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, and cross-tabulations, bar charts, histograms, and scatterplots.
• The RANK procedure, which produces ranks, normal scores, Savage scores, and percentiles for numeric variables.
• T-tests, univariate and multivariate analysis of variance and covariance, including repeated measures and nested designs.
• Multiple regression, NonLinear Regression, Constrained NonLinear Regression.
• Loglinear models for discrete data; probit models.
• Factor and principle components analysis, discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling.
• Nonparametric tests.

Besides these capabilities, SPSS add-on modules feature:

• Tables to produce simple or complex tabulation formatted for presentation.
• Trends including time series plots, plots of autocorrelation, partial autocorrelation, cross-correlation function, smoothing, seasonal regression, Box-Jenkins methods, spectral methods and forecasting.
• Categories for doing conjoint analysis and optimal scaling.

UNIX basics

When working in a UNIX environment, you often hear about the C-shell (csh), Bourne shell (sh), and Korn shell (ksh). These are simply command language interpreters. They tell the system to act on the command you type in from a terminal. Each shell has some unique features.

For SPSS computing, it makes no difference which shell you use. You access SPSS the same way whether you are in the K-shell or C-shell. Which shell is the default varies according to the system you're using. To change your local login shell, use the chsh command. You can also switch shells by typing ksh (from the C-shell) or csh (from the K-shell). The .login and .cshrc files are executed during login if you use the C-shell; .login and .kshrc files are executed during login if you use the K-shell.

For more on shells, see an introductory guide to UNIX, or The least you need to know about UNIX.

Helpful UNIX commands

Below are a few UNIX commands you may find useful. Italics denote a parameter that you must specify (e.g. filename, directory name, etc.).

ls                       list files in directory

ls -l                    list files in directory in detail

quota                    display disk quota (if any)

history                  see a list of commands executed so far

date                     print date and time

who                      see a list of all logged in users

whoami                    who is logged on to this account

pwd                      show current directory

passwd                   change password

cat file                 list the contents of the file

cat file1 file2 > file3  concatenates file1 and file2 into file

more file                list file page by page

cp file1 file2           copy file1 to file2

mv file1 file2           rename file1 to file2

rm file                  delete the file

head file                show the beginning 10 lines of the file

tail file                show the last 10 lines of the files

diff file1 file2         list the file differences

wc file                  count the number of lines, words, and character in the file

chmod mode file          change the protection mode of the file

finger username          give information on the user specified.  

chfn                     change finger information

cd pathname              change to directory pathname

cd ..                    move one directory up

cd                       move to the login directory

mkdir pathname           create a new directory pathname

rmdir pathname           remove directory pathname

man command              display UNIX manual entry for command 

logout                   end terminal session

Refer to a UNIX commands document for further information.

Editors in UNIX

You may use one of the several editors (e.g., vi, pico, emacs) available from UNIX. Refer to a user's manual or, at the UNIX prompt, type man editor name for online manual. For beginning UNIX users, pico may be the easiest to use. If you're doing e-mail on Shakespeare, you're already using pico, the editor in Pine.