How is a dash handled in OLS for ArcGIS 10.3

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03-16-2016 08:51 AM
SteveCline
Occasional Contributor

I am performing a regression in ArcGIS with the OLS tool.  I have a few values which are dashes representing no data.  How will the software handle these and should I make any changes to these values?

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1 Reply
JenoraD_Acosta
Occasional Contributor

The first step would be to make sure it is a numeric field.  Since you have both values and dashes it sounds like a string field.  Beyond that, if you have missing data or null values, the tool will throw out the whole record and it will not be included in the analysis.  To avoid those records being thrown out, you should find a way to predict or model the value at that location or use the average value -- whichever makes sense for your analysis.