SAS VA - Subtracting two columns

[tijanagilic]

Hello,

I need help on how to subtract one column from another in SAS VA.

I need another column next to the TEKUCI one that will be the difference = PRETHODNI - TEKUCI.

Or in this case below, another row, under TEKUCI, whic will be equal PRETHODNI - TEKUCI

Is this even possible? I didn't find anywhere any solution.

[MarkusWeick · Accepted solution]

Hi @tijanagilic,

as this is an important feature I link the documentation of calculated items, with which you could define a Difference column.

SAS Help Center: Working with Calculated Items in a Report

Best

Markus

[HunterT_SAS]

I think there's going to be a problem though in how @tijanagilic wants to display this. Getting the calculated value isn't going to be too difficult, but displaying it as another row/column after TEKUCI I don't think is possible. You can only create it as a new measure, which means it will show up as a column next to # (and thus appear twice in the crosstab, once for PRETHODNI and once for TEKUCI) rather than next to TEKUCI as a single column. 

I don't know what the column is called that contains both PRETHODNI and TEKUCI so I'm just going to call it Column but what I might recommend doing to get the visual you want is the following:

1. Create two new calculated items to represent the value of # for both PRETHODNI and TEKUCI:

If Column IN (PRETHODNI)

RETURN #

ELSE 0

and

If Column IN (TEKUCI)

RETURN #

ELSE 0

Now you have two new measures, we'll say Prethodni # and Tekuci #.

2. Create a third calculated item for the difference:

Prethodni # - Tekuci #

3. In your crosstab, take out Column and #, and instead use the three new measures we created. 

If I've misunderstood something though let me know.

[MarkusWeick]

Maybe I missed that the two columns are in a crosstab and not original data columns.

[tijanagilic]

It worked! 

Thank you! 😊