NAME

PSPP::Wrapper - Wrapper for the pspp command-line interface

DESCRIPTION

PSPP is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It is a Free replacement for the proprietary program SPSS, and appears very similar to it with a few exceptions. PSPP is particularly aimed at statisticians, social scientists and students requiring fast convenient analysis of sampled data.

For more information, see http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/

You need to install the PSPP binary to use this module.

This module currently only contains one useful method, save, which makes it easy to generate PSPP/SPSS-compatible .sav files.

VERSION

Version 0.01

SYNOPSIS

# Generate a SPSS-compatible .sav file from an array of data
my $pspp     = PSPP::Wrapper->new( verbose => 0 );
my $rows     = [
    [ "AMC Concord",   22, 2930, 4099 ],
    [ "AMC Pacer",     17, 3350, 4749 ],
    [ "AMC Spirit",    22, 2640, 3799 ],
    [ "Buick Century", 20, 3250, 4816 ],
    [ "Buick Electra", 15, 4080, 7827 ],
];
$pspp->save(
    variables => 'make (A15) mpg weight price',
    rows      => $rows,
    outfile   => $outfile1,
) or warn "An error occurred";

# Generate a csv file ourselves from $rows
my $csv = Text::CSV_XS->new( { binary => 1 } );
my $fh = File::Temp->new( SUFFIX => '.csv' );
for my $row (@$rows) {
    $csv->print( $fh, $row );
    print $fh "\n";
}
$fh->close;
$pspp->save(
    variables => 'make (A15) mpg weight price',
    infile    => $fh->filename,
    outfile   => $outfile2,
) or warn "An error occurred";

methods

new

Constructor. Acceptions the following options:

verbose
timeout

The IPC::Run::run timeout value

pspp_binary

The location of the pspp binary. Defaults to pspp.

save

Generate a PSPP (and hence SPSS) compatible .sav file

You must specify either rows or infile. Accepts the following options:

outfile

The name of the file to generate (defaults to out.sav)

variables

The PSPP/SPSS variables definition

rows

An array reference of rows to include in the data (optional)

infile

A data-file to read from (optional)

verbose

Returns true if the verbose flag is set

AUTHOR

Patrick Donelan, <pdonelan at cpan.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-pspp at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=PSPP::Wrapper. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

perldoc PSPP::Wrapper

You can also look for information at:

SEE ALSO

For a module that actually groks PSPP (rather than just wrapping it) and hence allows you to read/write PSPP and/or SPSS native files, see: PSPP

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2009 Patrick Donelan, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.