Thanks, Raynald. I checked your syntax and created the following. It does what I need it to do. I've copied my syntax below. I'm still frustrated that it takes 16 lines of code to do what seems like should work in three!

Jeff

**************************************************************************** ****************************. * Macro to save current data file with passed name and today's date. * Create string with date in YYYY-MM-DD format. STRING #cdate (A11). STRING #ddate (A11). STRING #mo (A2). STRING #tmo (A3). COMPUTE #cdate=$DATE11. COMPUTE #tmo=SUBSTR(#cDATE,4,3). RECODE #tmo('JAN'='01')('FEB'='02')('MAR'='03')('APR'='04')('MAY'='05')('JUN'='06') ('JUL'='07') ('AUG'='08') ('SEP'='09')('OCT'='10')('NOV'='11')('DEC'='12') INTO #mo. compute #ddate=concat(substr(#cdate,8,4),'-',#mo,'-',substr(#cdate,1,2)). * Create macro with today's date hard-coded. DO IF $casenum=1. WRITE OUTFILE 'tempdate.sps' /"DEFINE !date()"/#ddate/"!ENDDEFINE.". END IF. EXECUTE. * Run the macro. INCLUDE 'tempdate.sps'. **************************************************************************** ****************************. * Create the macro to save the file. DEFINE !SaveDt (!POS=!CMDEND). save outfile = !QUOTE(!CONCAT(!UNQUOTE(!1),!EVAL(!date),'.sav')). !ENDDEFINE. * Run the macro. !SaveDt C:\TestNameOfFile. **************************************************************************** ****************************.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 21:28:36 -0400 From: Raynald Levesque <rlevesque@videotron.ca> Subject: Re: Saving file with current date in name Hi Did you look at the file "Print current date in chart title.SPS" in http://pages.infinit.net/rlevesqu/SampleSyntax.htm#ChartsAndTables If I were you I would use a date of the format YYYY-MM-DD instead of DD-MMM-YYYY The advantage of the format I suggest is that when you sort files by alphabetical order, they are also by date order. HTH Raynald Levesque rlevesque@videotron.ca Visit my SPSS Pages <http://pages.infinit.net/rlevesqu/index.htm> http://pages.infinit.net/rlevesqu/index.htm

-----Original Message----- From: Jeff Erickson Sent: Thursday, September 26, 2002 3:25 PM To: 'SPSSX-L@listserv.uga.edu' Subject: Saving file with current date in name

I want to save backup versions of my data files before making significant changes to them. If I could automatically append the system date (using $DATE11) to the file name, I could create a history of the changes to the file. I saw some syntax from Raynald Levesque on January 3rd that I modified trying to get this to work, but it does not.

The syntax I have tried is as follows:

* --------------------------------------------------------. DEFINE !SaveDt (VarA = !TOKENS(1) ). save outfile = !QUOTE(!CONCAT(!UNQUOTE(!VarA),!DATE11,'.sav')). !ENDDEFINE. * --------------------------------------------------------. !SaveDt VarA='C:\Testfile'.

I want this to create a data file named 'C:\Testfile26-SEP-2002.sav' today and 'C:\Testfile27-SEP-2002.sav' tomorrow. However, it creates a data file named 'C:\Testfile!DATE11.sav'.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for fixing this?

Thanks, Jeff