SPSS automated variable labels with leading zeros - spss

Question

what I am struggling with is to adopt one of the syntax/macros from http://www.spsstools.net/.
It was intended to change labels of "many-many" variables that do not have the leading zeros, but my variables do have those:
DATA LIST LIST /id.
BEGIN DATA
1
END DATA.
NUMERIC set01sub1 TO set01sub4.
* but the intended variable names are set01sub01 TO set01sub04 (with leading zeros and going over 10).
SET MPRINT=yes.
DEFINE !label (lab=!TOKENS(1) /stem=!TOKENS(1) /nb1=!TOKENS(1) /nb2=!TOKENS(1))
!DO !cnt=!nb1 !TO !nb2
!LET !var=!CONCAT(!stem,!cnt)
!LET !labe=!QUOTE(!CONCAT(!UNQUOTE(!lab),!cnt))
VARIABLE LABEL !var !labe.
!DOEND.
!ENDDEFINE.
!label lab='Set 1, subset ' stem=set01sub nb1=1 nb2=4.
I was very naive and I have tried to use !STRING(...,N2):
!LET !labe=!QUOTE(!CONCAT(!UNQUOTE(!lab),!STRING(!cnt,N2)))
but, this didn't work as expected
my variables are
subID
rvnAns_s01m01 TO rvnAns_s01m12
rvnAns_s02m01 TO rvnAns_s02m36
rvnAns_s03m01 TO rvnAns_s03m36
rvnEva_s01m01 TO rvnEva_s01m12
rvnEva_s02m01 TO rvnEva_s02m36
rvnEva_s03m01 TO rvnEva_s03m36
and the intended labels are:
"Subject ID"
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 01 answer"
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 02 answer"
...
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 12 answer"
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 01 answer"
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 02 answer"
...
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 36 answer"
"RAPM, Series 03, Matrix 01 answer"
"RAPM, Series 03, Matrix 02 answer"
...
"RAPM, Series 03, Matrix 36 answer"
and
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 01 answer evaluation"
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 02 answer evaluation"
...
"RAPM, Series 01, Matrix 12 answer evaluation"
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 01 answer evaluation"
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 02 answer evaluation"
...
"RAPM, Series 02, Matrix 36 answer evaluation"
"RAPM, Series 03, Matrix 01 answer evaluation"
"RAPM, Series 03, Matrix 02 answer evaluation"
...
"RAPMs, Series 03, Matrix 36 answer evaluation"
I would be very grateful for any help or suggestions on how to achieve such result.

Answer 1

If you install the Python Essentials via the SPSS Community website (www.ibm.com/developerworks/spssdevcentral), the following program will convert the variable names.
It makes two assumptions:
1) None of the names has a form with just a leading zero, e.g., x0y1. (That could be addressed with a little more complexity
2) None of the renames will result in a name collision.
3) None of the expanded names will exceed the maximum length for a name (64 bytes).
Explanation below the program.
begin program.
import spss, re
for v in range(spss.GetVariableCount()):
vname = spss.GetVariableName(v)
vnamenew = re.sub(r"(\D)([1-9])", r"\g<1>0\g<2>", vname)
if vname != vnamenew:
spss.Submit("rename variables (%s=%s)" % (vname, vnamenew))
print vname, "->", vnamenew
end program.
This program iterates through all the variable names. For each one it looks for all occurrences of nondigit-nonzerodit and replaces it with nondigit-0-digit and then generates and runs a rename variables command.

Answer 2

As I said in my comment on crossvalidated, your code does work for the given sample if you supply the stem token with the leading zero, e.g. stem=set01sub0.
If you have ranges that span more than 10 digits though, I presume you won't have a leading zero for values of 10+. Below I have an example in the MACRO using conditional evaluation to concatenate a leading zero for values below 10. If you have potentially more values (e.g. go into 100's and so have two leading zeroes) this would need to be amended.
DATA LIST LIST /id.
BEGIN DATA
1
END DATA.
NUMERIC set01sub01 TO set01sub15.
DEFINE !label (lab=!TOKENS(1) /stem=!TOKENS(1) /nb1=!TOKENS(1) /nb2=!TOKENS(1))
!DO !cnt=!nb1 !TO !nb2
!IF (!LENGTH(!cnt) = 1) !THEN
!LET !cnt0 = !CONCAT("0",!cnt)
!ELSE
!LET !cnt0 = !cnt
!IFEND
!LET !var=!CONCAT(!stem,!cnt0)
!LET !labe=!QUOTE(!CONCAT(!UNQUOTE(!lab),!cnt0))
VARIABLE LABEL !var !labe.
!DOEND.
!ENDDEFINE.
PRESERVE.
SET MPRINT ON.
!label lab='Set 1, subset ' stem=set01sub nb1=1 nb2=15.
RESTORE.