11.21 LEAVE

LEAVE prevents the specified variables from being reinitialized whenever a new case is processed.

LEAVE var_list.

Normally, when a data file is processed, every variable in the active dataset is initialized to the system-missing value or spaces at the beginning of processing for each case. When a variable has been specified on LEAVE, this is not the case. Instead, that variable is initialized to 0 (not system-missing) or spaces for the first case. After that, it retains its value between cases.

This becomes useful for counters. For instance, in the example below the variable SUM maintains a running total of the values in the ITEM variable.

DATA LIST /ITEM 1-3.
COMPUTE SUM=SUM+ITEM.
PRINT /ITEM SUM.
LEAVE SUM
BEGIN DATA.
123
404
555
999
END DATA.

Partial output from this example:

123   123.00
404   527.00
555  1082.00
999  2081.00

It is best to use LEAVE command immediately before invoking a procedure command, because the left status of variables is reset by certain transformations—for instance, COMPUTE and IF. Left status is also reset by all procedure invocations.