Python in SPSS - KEEP variables
<p>I have selected the variables I need based on a string within the variable name. I'm not sure how to keep only these variables from my SPSS file. </p>

<pre><code>begin program.
import spss,spssaux
spssaux.OpenDataFile(r'XXXX.sav')
target_string = 'qb2'
variables = [var for var in spssaux.GetVariableNamesList() if target_string in var]
vars = spssaux.VariableDict().expand(variables)
nvars=len(vars)
for i in range(nvars):
    print vars[i]
spss.Submit(r"""
SAVE OUTFILE='XXXX_reduced.sav'.
ADD FILES FILE=* /KEEP \n %s.
""" %(vars))
end program.
</code></pre>

<p>The list of variables that it prints out is correct, but it's falling over trying to KEEP them. I'm guessing it's something to do with not activating a dataset or bringing in the file again as to why there's errors?</p>

<p>Have you tried reversing the order of the SAVE OUTFILE and ADD FILES commands? I haven't run this in SPSS via Python, but in standard SPSS, your syntax will write the file to disk, and then select the variables for the active version in memory--so if you later access the saved file, it will be the version before you selected variables.
If that doesn't work, can you explain what you mean by falling over trying to KEEP them?</p>

python spss