Hi! I am hoping someone on this site can assist. I am doing my Ph.D. research on juvenile firesetting and am using large databases from 2001-2005 from the National Fire Data Center. Each year has three datasets, all containing information/ variables about a given fire incident that need to be merged together on several key variables. Each year then needs to be put into the same data editor (file) to create one BIG databases for years 2001-2005 with all the variables for each fire incident.

you can see these modules at www.sharpend.us/NFIRS.

Basically I need to merge fireincident and basicincident into the juv_arson database for each year. The key variables are STATE, FDID, INC_NO, and DATE.
The FDID is an unique identifier for each fire department within a state. The INC_NO is a unique identifier for the fire incident within the FDID etc.

SPSS 17.0 is not allowing me to merge. Output says I need to sort. Even after I sort it will not merge. I have been told it may be possible in SAS but I don't know anything about SAS.

I would be extremely appreciative for any advice. I would also be up for paying someone if you can merge these into the final usable SPSS database and I could get a copy within the next few days.(Would also need an explanation of how it was done for the write-up) This is holding up my progress terribly!

Many thanks! (this could save my sanity!)

What is your status on the project now? I subscribed to this thread to see what answers would be proposed, but there is nothing yet. Unfortunately, the files are too large for me to download. I have had my own troubles merging large databases in SPSS (v14 and v15), and here is all I can advise:

The main file that you will merge the other files into can have duplicates of the key variable, but the other files must not have any duplicates.

It sounds in your case like INC_NO should be the only key variable. Is it in all three files?