Server User Guides > Survey Tabulation > Working with hierarchical data > Understanding grid tables > Grids and loops that contain more than one variable
 
Grids and loops that contain more than one variable
The vehicle.rating grid contains only one variable: the Column variable. However, some loops contain more than one variable. When you use the Add Grid/Loop method with a grid or loop that contains more than one variable, all of the variables that are contained in the loop are concatenated together in the grid table. Any non-categorical variables that are inside the loop and do not have an axis specification defined are ignored.
This means that if you do not want to include all of the variables in the grid table, you need to create it by putting the loop or grid on the side or top axis and the variables that you want to include on the other axis.
For example, in the Household sample, the person loop is defined as expanded (which means that you can use it to create a grid table) and contains more than one variable. Suppose, you want to use the person loop to create a grid table containing only the gender and occupation variables. To do this, select the person loop in the Variable List and click Click to Add in the top axis. Then select the gender and occupation variables that are inside the person loop, and finally click Click to Add in the side axis.
However, creating grid tables from numeric loops is less common than for categorical loops. This is because generally the iterations in numeric loops don't have a fixed meaning as they do in categorical loops. For example, consider a numeric loop that asks questions about journeys to the supermarket in which each iteration represents one of the journeys. Creating a grid table to tabulate the questions in the loop by the iteration (which represents whether it was the first, second, or third journey, and so on, in the week) generally makes little sense.
Restrictions
You cannot specify a subset of the iterations to be included.
See also
Working with hierarchical data
The Household sample
The hierarchical variable list
Understanding population levels
Setting the population level
The base in grid tables
Grid and loop slices
Filtering hierarchical data
Changing the view
‘Hierarchical data’ on page 231
Understanding grid tables