Desktop User Guides > Professional > Interview scripting > Writing interview scripts > Questions and responses > Special responses > No Answer
 
No Answer
To define a No Answer response in a categorical response list, place the following line in the question’s response list in the metadata section of the interview script:
ResponseName "ResponseText" na
For example:
MaritalStatus "What is your marital status?" categorical [1..1]
  { Single,
    Married "Married/Living with partner",
    Divorced "Separated/Divorced",
    Widowed
  
    MaritalStatusNA "Would rather not say" na
};
Respondents can choose any of the listed marital statuses or “Would rather not say”.
To allow No Answer as a response to a numeric, text, or date question, define the question as follows:
Qname "Text" Type [Size] codes (
  {

    ResponseName "ResponseText" na
  }
);
For example:
OtherConsiderations "And is there anything else that is important to you when choosing somewhere to eat?" text codes (
  {
    NoOtherConsiderations "Nothing else" na
  }
);
When the interviewing program reaches this question, it displays a text input box with a “No answer” checkbox below it. Respondents can either type text in the input box or select the checkbox.
mrScriptMetadata accepts - (dash or hyphen) as the response name for special responses, and generates a response whose name matches the special response keyword (“na” in this instance). Although this is acceptable scriptwriting, you should choose unique names for all categorical responses, including special responses.
If you need to test for No answer responses in the routing section of the script, use Qname.Response.Coded as described in Checking for special responses to non-categorical questions.
See also
Special responses