Ed, I know little about Access and have been using SAS for 15+ years. Problem is, very few folks that request data/information from me even know what SAS stands for. I guess I see the writing on the wall. I've been dragging my feet on learning Access, but the time has come and quite honestly, I'm pretty excited about it. It will be a bumpy road for a while, but eventually I'll be able to take the training wheels off. That's all for now...
Mike --- In [email protected], "Tesiny, Ed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Mike, > I think I know where you're coming from. We often have > surveys/interviews that are entered into an Access database. We then > import the tables into SPSS. Where you choose to "clean" the data is a > matter of preference, I generally prefer to do my data cleaning in SPSS, > a colleague does her data cleaning in Access using queries. I can't say > which is more efficient, probably depends on the kind of changes you are > making to the data. If you are cleaning data in Access through queries, > once you have the data in the format you want you could import the query > into SPSS or use a Make Table query to create a new table with "correct" > values. This doesn't really answer your question but I don't think > there is a preferred method, probably depends a lot on how proficient > you are with Access, SPSS or in your case SAS. > > Ed Tesiny > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [email protected] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of takeadoe > > Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 10:07 PM > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: [ms_access] Back to the basics... > > > > Folks, > > > > I'm just now beginning to use Access. To date, I've managed hundreds > > of thousands of records in SAS, but would like to expand my software > > horizon. I've read some and sat throught some classes, but one of > > things that I can't seem to get my head wrapped around is this: if > > you're given a large table that has missing and incomplete > > records and > > you want to clean that data up, (replace missing dates using the > > previous record and randomly assign records a value based on a number > > of criteria for example), do you actually modify the original table or > > simpy create queries that create "temporary" tables that contain the > > new and improved records? > > > > I know that in SAS, you may have several data steps and several > > temporary data sets, but when you get the data like you want it, you > > create a permanent SAS data set that is stored on your computer or a > > server. In the end, your raw data remains in tact and you also have a > > cleaned copy of that data for subsequent analyses. All of the > > intermediate data sets are gone when you exit SAS. Perhaps > > queries in > > Access can be viewed as intermediate data steps. And I suppose that if > > you wanted, you could create a permanent copy of the cleaned > > table once > > you got the data just the way you wanted it. Does this make any sense > > at all? > > > > Mike > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ms_access/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
