Quantum generates an internal name or ‘tag’ for axes, alpha and numeric variables. Quantum uses the tag internally when running a job; for example for the filenames of the intermediate axes files, which hold information about the individual axes, and which have a filename of the form xxxx.ax where xxxx is the tag. However, in places such as table titles and in nqtspss output Quantum uses the axis or variable name and not the tag.

If an axis name is no more than seven characters and does not clash with the tag of an existing axis or alpha variable, Quantum uses the axis name as the tag. Otherwise it generates a tag of the form x_nnnn_, where nnnn is the next available four-digit number starting with 0001.

Similarly, Quantum uses the variable name as a tag for numeric and alpha variable unless any of the following are true, when it generates a tag:

The generated tag is in the form t_nnnn_ for an alpha variable and n_nnnn_ for a numeric variable, where nnnn is the next available four-digit number starting with 0001.

At the end of the out1 file, Quantum lists all the axes and alpha and numeric variables whose tags are different from their axis names. For example, the last line in the out1 file shown earlier is: