Syntax Guide: Filtered Answer Options

For categorical single select and multi-select questions, Survey Solutions allows you to filter the answer options so that not all the answer options for the question will be displayed to the interviewer. Filtering answer options can help improve data quality so that an interviewer cannot select answer options that are either impossible or highly unlikely. For example, for a question where the interviewer has to select the household member’s father, you can filter the answer options so that anyone that is younger than the household member will not be displayed.
 

Syntax Guide: Multi-select questions

Two types of multi-select questions

There are two types of multi-select questions. They differ not only in the way they appear, but in the way their answers can be referenced with Survey Solutions’ conditions language.

Click below on the type of multi-select question that interests you:

• Series of tick boxes
• Series of yes/no questions

Series of tick boxes

Technical introduction

When the interviewer answers a multi-select question, the answers are stored in an array.

Syntax Guide: List questions

List questions are recorded as Tuple<decimal, string> data type.

Each item in a list question response consists of two elements. One is the item number, and the other is the accompanying text. For example, in the list question displayed. “Paul Smith” is the text element (Item2) and “2” is the number(Item1).

List of household members =
[
{1, “Mary Smith”}
{2, “Paul Smith”}
{3, “Richard Smith”}
]
 

Syntax Guide: Text questions

Responses to text questions are recorded as a string data type. The content for these types of questions consists of characters (e.g. the letter “A”), group of characters (e.g. “Mat”), or class of characters (e.g. white or empty space).
 
The following functions can be used in conditions for text questions:

• Length: Checks the number of characters
• “A text”: Checks that the response is exactly equal to a specified text (“A text”)
• Contains: Checks that the response includes a specified text
• ConsistsOf: Checks that the response includes one or more of the specified characters
• IsAlphaLatin: Checks that the response consists of latin characters
• IsAlphaLatinOrDelimiter: Checks that the response consists of latin characters and delimiters
• IsNullOrWhiteSpace: Checks that the response is null or consists of blank spaces

Syntax Guide: Barcode questions

Responses for barcode questions are recorded as a string data type.
 
The following functions can be used in conditions for barcode questions:

• Length: Checks the number of characters
• StartsWith: Checks that the barcode starts with specific characters
• EndsWith: Checks that the barcode ends with specific characters
• IsNumber: Checks that the barcode is a number
• ConsistsOf: Checks that the barcode consists of a specific set characters

Length

Description

Checks the number of characters.
 

Syntax Guide: GPS questions

Responses for the GPS questions are recorded as: 

class {
  double Latitude;
  double Longitude;
  double Accuracy;
  double Altitude;
}

The following functions can be used in conditions for GPS questions:

• Longitude, Latitude, Accuracy, and Altitude. Retrieves the latitude/longitude/accuracy/altitude of a GPS coordinate.
• InRectangle. Check if the coordinates are inside a rectangle. 
• GpsDistance. Calculate the distance between two coordinates in meters.
• GpsDistanceKm. *Calculate the distance between two coordinates in kilometers. *

Longitude, Latitude, Accuracy, and Altitude

Description

Retrieves the latitude/longitude/accuracy/altitude of a GPS coordinate.

Syntax Guide: Date questions

There are two types of date questions: Calendar and Current time. Both of these questions are recorded as DateTime? data type. 
 
Responses for the calendar data questions are recorded as  {Year, Month, Day}. Meanwhile, responses to the current time questions are recorded as {Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second}.
 

Calendar

Comparisons

• Relational Operators. Less than, greater than, equal to, etc
• InRange. Checks if the date falls within an interval.

​Perform Calculations

• FullYearsBetween. Computes full years between an earlier and later date.
• FullYearsSince. Computes full years between a later date with an earlier date.
• CenturyMonthCode.Computes elapsed time in months with Century Month Code(CMC).
• TotalDays. Computes elapsed time in days.
• Value.AddYears/Months/Days. *Add or subtract years, months, or days. *

Extract Information

• Value.Year/Month/Day. Retrieve the year, month, or day.
• New DateTime. Constructs a new date.
• IsDate. Confirms that a date matches a calendar date.

Current Time

Extract Information

• Date. Retrieve the date.
• Hour. Retrieve the hour.

Perform Calculations

• AddHours.Compute a date by adding a number of hours.
• AddMinutes. Compute a date by adding a number of minutes.

Operators

Description

Compare a calendar date with another using the relational operators.

Syntax Guide: Single-select questions

Common tasks

The section below lists the common tasks, and the elements of the syntax for accomplishing them.

Comparison to a value

• Relational Operators
• less than, greater than, equal to, etc.

Comparison to a range

• InRange. Checks if the selected answer falls within a range of user-specified values.

Comparison to a list of values

• InList. Checks whether the selected answer is among the set of enumerated values.
• IsNoneOf. Confirms that the selected answer is not among the set of enumerated values.

Count the number of values

• CountValue. Counts the number of times a specified value is recorded as the answer to the set of enumerated questions.

Syntax explained

InRange

Syntax

singleSelect.InRange(a,b)

Description

Checks if the selected answer falls within a range of user-specified values. Returns true if

Syntax Guide: Numeric Questions

Responses to numeric questions are recorded in the long data type for integer numbers and record in the double data type for real numbers (ie 1.5, 2.73, 15.25, 2.0).

The following functions and operators can be used in conditions for numeric questions:
 

Comparison to a value

• Relational Operators: less than, greater than, equal to, etc

Comparison to a range or several values

• InRange: Checks if the number falls within a range
• InList: Checks if the number falls within a list of numbers