KNOWLEDGEBASE - ARTICLE #1969

Bug: Excluded data can vanish from pzfx files

Prism lets you exclude values on the data table. Excluded values are still visible on the data table (in blue italics with an asterisk after the digits) but are not included in analyses or graphs. If you save a file, and then reopen it, the excluded values ought to still show as excluded. But there is a situation where the excluded values are totally gone when you save and open the file. This will happen if you follow these steps with any version of Prism up to 6.06 and 6.0g. 

  1. Exclude some values in a data table.
  2. Choose the export command.
  3. On the export dialog, choose to Export excluded values as: "Blanks (missing values)".
  4. Check "Make these options become the defaults" checkbox, and click OK.
  5. Save the file (or any other file with excluded data) as PZFX
  6. Close then reopen the file.

When you reopen that file, the excluded values are totally gone. 
The fundamental bug is that the option to not show excluded values in exported text files is also applied when saving as PZFX, but it should be ignored in that case. One workaround is to export some data, set that option to export the excluded values, and check the option to make that choice the default. Another workaround is to save in the PZF format, rather than the PZFX format. 
We'll fix in Prism 7. 

 

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