Restructure node (SPSS Modeler)

Restructure node

Last updated: Feb 12, 2025

With the Restructure node, you can generate multiple fields based on the values of a nominal or flag field. The newly generated fields can contain values from another field or numeric flags (0 and 1). The functionality of this node is similar to that of the Set to Flag node. However, it offers more flexibility by allowing you to create fields of any type (including numeric flags), using the values from another field. You can then perform aggregation or other manipulations with other nodes downstream. (The Set to Flag node lets you aggregate fields in one step, which may be convenient if you are creating flag fields.)

Example

For example, the following dataset contains a nominal field, Account, with the values Savings and Draft. The opening balance and current balance are recorded for each account, and some customers have multiple accounts of each type. Let's say you want to know whether each customer has a particular account type, and if so, how much money is in each account type. You use the Restructure node to generate a field for each of the Account values, and you select Current_Balance as the value. Each new field is populated with the current balance for the given record.

Table 1. Sample data before restructuring
CustID	Account	Open_Bal	Current_Bal
12701	Draft	1000	1005.32
12702	Savings	100	144.51
12703	Savings	300	321.20
12703	Savings	150	204.51
12703	Draft	1200	586.32

Table 2. Sample data after restructuring
CustID	Account	Open_Bal	Current_Bal	Account_Draft_ Current_Bal	Account_Savings _Current_Bal
12701	Draft	1000	1005.32	1005.32	$null$
12702	Savings	100	144.51	$null$	144.51
12703	Savings	300	321.20	$null$	321.20
12703	Savings	150	204.51	$null$	204.51
12703	Draft	1200	586.32	586.32	$null$

Using the Restructure node with the Aggregate node

In many cases, you may want to pair the Restructure node with an Aggregate node. In the previous example, one customer (with the ID 12703) has three accounts. You can use an Aggregate node to calculate the total balance for each account type. The key field is CustID, and the aggregate fields are the new restructured fields, Account_Draft_Current_Bal and Account_Savings_Current_Bal. The following table shows the results.

Table 3. Sample data after restructuring and aggregation
CustID	Record_Count	Account_Draft_Current_ Bal_Sum	Account_Savings_Current_ Bal_Sum
12701	1	1005.32	$null$
12702	1	$null$	144.51
12703	3	586.32	525.71

More informattion

Tips:

In many cases, a Type node is required upstream from a Restructure node. For details about the Type node, see Type node and its many subsections.
After double-clicking a node to work with its properties, you can hover over tool tips to see helpful information about various node properties.
Tutorials are available to introduce you to various modeling methods and techniques. See Tutorials.