ARCHIVED: In SPSS in Unix, how do I change the default work directory where temporary files are stored?

Your SPSS job may require SPSS to create temporary system files that exceed the capacity of the default work directory assigned to SPSS. If this happens, you must give SPSS more space in which to work by changing the default SPSS work directory and redirecting the output to another directory. To do this, you need to modify the SPSSTMPDIR environment variable. The command to use depends on the type of shell you are using:

• To change the default directory from /tmp to the /scr directory for Unix accounts using the csh and tcsh shells, enter the following line at the Unix prompt: setenv SPSSTMPDIR /scr/$USER
• For the ksh and bash shells, enter: SPSSTMPDIR=/scr/$USER ; export SPSSTMPDIR

Keep in mind that the default work directory is already set to /tmp. This directory will typically have more space than the /scr directory, so changing work directories might not solve your problem. If, however, you use a df command and find that there is more space on /scr than /tmp, this procedure should solve your problem.

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