Count the number of occurrences of a value or several values across a list of variables.

COUNT varnam=varlist(vallist)/[varnam...]

COUNT counts the number of times the specified value(s) appear across a list of variables and stores the result in . If exists it will be overwritten, otherwise a new variable will be created.

is a list of values; you can also use the following keywords: LO (or LOWEST), HI (or HIGHEST), THRU, MISSING and SYSMIS. Some examples:

• COUNT NREAD=MONDE,NZZ,TEMPS,FAZ,BZ,TAZ,MATIN(1,2,3). Counts all occurences of values 1,2,3 across all these variables; where 1 stands for a person reading the corresponding newspaper "very often", 2 "often" and 3 "sometimes".
• COUNT LW=Q1 TO q10 (10 THRU HI) counts all values of 10 and above
• COUNT NMISS=Q1 TO Q12(MISSING) Count both user missing and system missing values on all variables in the list.
• COUNT NMISS1=Q1 TO Q12(SYSMIS)Counts system missing values on all variables in the list.

COUNT never produces a SYSMIS value; if you want e.g. to consider a count of 0 as missing, you will have to add an explicit MISSING VALUES definition for the newly created variable.