@RandoDando wrote: I have this code, but I am unsure it will work as intended.  data Part1 Part2 Part3 Part4 Part5 Part6 Part7 Part8 Part9 Part10; set LARGE_SET; id = mod(_n_, 10); if id = 0 then output Part1; else if id = 1 then output Part2; else if id = 2 then output Part3; else if id = 3 then output Part4; else if id = 4 then output Part5; else if id = 5 then output Part6; else if id = 6 then output Part7; else if id = 7 then output Part8; else if id = 8 then output Part9; else output Part10; drop id; run; Once upon a time we had a graduate student in the shop I worked asked how to split the "large" SAS data set into smaller pieces, though in his case it was to separate individual variables, because when it exported to Excel to do summary statistics the result was taking more than 4 hours. I asked what he was attempting and showed him that asking for the exact same summary statistics he was requesting using SAS with the existing SAS data set executed in 1 min 15 seconds.   Things like this are why we ask what your further processing involves.  Also remember that if the original data set order changes you cannot reproduce the same results if you partition it this way again.  ... View more

@Tom wrote: @RandoDando wrote: Thanks. I have a followup question: will Proc compare treat two identical date values in different formats as equal? Yes.  The value stored is not impacted by the method you have attached for how to display the value. An anecdote from data imported from Excel: I have had values that appeared as dates in Excel that had a decimal component that was kept on import. Since the SAS date formats only use the the integer portion you might not see that decimal bit until you try to match the dates and get unexpected results.    IIRC this occurred with an Excel column that contained mixed date only values and datetime values as Excel uses the decimal portion to store time of day information.   ... View more

@thomasn528 wrote: Thanks but no, that's not it. The error message claimed the *prior* nested sort hadn't worked. and had even yielded a differently sized data set!! (as SASKiwi noted.) The "rnd" is listed last, it's needed there, it's the item to be ranked in PROC RANK -- and this step had never malfunctioned before, in dozens and dozens of program runs-times-loop-iterations. Having re-run the same program on the same data without error this time, this now seems to me to have (indeed) been some kind of resource shortage/malfunction caused by running two demanding programs at the same time on my little pony of a PC. The highlighted is not what the log shows. It says that the set that Proc Rank attempted to use did not match the required sort. Not that the sort hadn't worked. Pedantic perhaps but there is a difference.   Macros and reusing of same data set names is always something to be a bit cautious of as a failure of one element can leave a data set from a previous run. I often remove "temporary" data sets at the end of a loop so this doesn't occur (and to keep disk space under control sometimes).     ... View more

    @hein68 wrote: Hello.  I wrote some proc tabulate code that is working for me with continuous outcome variables but not categorical outcome variables.  I would appreciate any help you can provide. The data is a long file where all IDs have a pre record and some IDs have a post record. Here is the code.  I cannot drop it in, sorry. proc tabulate data=data format=6.1 nosep order=internal;   class group / descending; class time; var contvar; table contvar*(n mean std nmiss),group*time; run; How would I get a table with n and % for categorical variables by group (sorted ascending) and time (pre and post) sorted descending? Thanks!   Since your Proc Tabulate code does not use any variable called ID why do you include " where all IDs have a pre record and some IDs have a post record. " That bit of trivia apparently has no obvious connection to this problem. If you are discussing the role of a variable then name the variable.   If you want Group to be ascending then why did you have the option /descending for the Group variable? The default for class variables is "ascending" but if you have a FORMAT applied to the variable(s)  things may appear as if they are not ordered.   Strong hint: provide some example data in the form of a working data step and if your actual data has custom formats applied then the definitions of the formats, or at least enough to work with the example data. ... View more

One caution with using Excel files as libraries to read data into SAS: They must be clean.   That means column headings only one cell starting on the first row, all the data in a column the same, i.e. numeric with the same type (all dates, all currency, all simple numbers, no mixing) or character. If the Excel is actually more of a report appearance then likely the library approach will lead to much frustration.   If the Excel has two or more column headings then the column will likely be treated as character. If there are one or more blank cells above the headings you will likely again have the column treated a character (and possibly records with missing values).    At one point in my working career I would say that nearly 20 percent of my work time was cleaning up Excel "data" that the creators could not, or would not, keep consistent in any structure. When the Excel library was introduced in SAS I had one project that it seemed a reasonable solution to the read the frequent files provided. Lasted 3 weeks before the first file change.   ... View more

@sbxkoenk might have added that the UNISCALE option allows controlling which axis has the same scale and which are allowed to differ. So the uniscale=column says that that the column variable, the horizontal axis, will have the same interval and tick marks but the vertical axis is allowed to vary between the Panelby variable values. ... View more

Many users here don't want to download Excel files because of virus potential, others have such things blocked by security software. Also if you give us Excel we have to create a SAS data set and due to the non-existent constraints on Excel data cells the result we end up with may not have variables of the same type (numeric or character) and even values.   You also do not provide any STARTING data at all. As a minimum we would need a working data step that creates a TEST data set that will yield a similar behavior to your problem. The data step code should be pasted into a text or code box, opened on the forum by clicking on either the </> or "running man" icon above the main message window. These boxes will prevent the forum software from reformatting code such as by removing indentation if any was used and has been known to introduce artifacts into code so that it will not run as pasted.   Another advantage to the data step is that we can see the names and properties of variables without even running code. Sometimes that is sufficient to answer some questions.   Something else that would be helpful would be to describe what you want help with. Is it only the assignment of the visit number as implied by your subject is there something involving AVAL because you mention "worst Aval" but do not define that anywhere in the problem. And if that is in the example output you show it isn't labeled so we can't tell.   At which step is your i_need supposed to generated? Since your code doesn't mention that name for a data set the step(s) in question are a bit obtuse. Also, the "logic" throws out a lot of apparent time intervals but not a clear explanation of what the intervals are used for.   It may not hurt to define what "week" means to you as SAS has some function that are more direct interval calculations. Though I suspect that anything using a changing length and thinking of it as "week" is problematic along those lines.   Without starting data I can see a couple of places that could result in unexpected results. The most obvious would be having more than one missing ADY value sequentially or identical values of ADY, presumably across whatever PARAMCD is. Which could be occurring on the same date but at different times of day. Another is where you take the full TEST1 data set and then append records using SET statement. I would almost think that a MERGE on subjid and avistn (or other identifying variables) would make more sense if the purpose is just to add one number. There are also places that you assign missing to the new_avist and new_avistn variables. Missing is smaller than all other values so the order of processing in the SQL portion of that macro may not be as expected.   ... View more

In this case if the suggestion is to run Proc Contents then I would say the system is failing way earlier. Such as when reading the data into SAS. If you control the read, such as with DATA step code instead of Import then the Proc Contents should be moot. Or if linking to an external data system they are changing specs on the source data and the read process is not checking early enough.  Symptom in the log: NOTE: The data set WORK.FINAL has 0 observations. Root cause: A WHERE condition is too restrictive or mismatched in data type. where transaction_date = '01APR2026'; But transaction_date is a SAS date (numeric), not a character value. How a pro fixes it: where transaction_date = '01APR2026'd; Pro lesson: :white_heavy_check_mark: Always confirm variable types using PROC CONTENTS :white_heavy_check_mark: Empty outputs are often logic issues, not syntax issues I spent 10 years working on a government data project where we could not get the contracts people concerned with the data required to report on the activities to be specified as part of the contracts. As a result I had to deal with data "sources" that changed content, layout, file type and access methods as often as monthly. The report pieces had to be rewritten to deal with the data changes frequently because the data was such different.  I especially enjoyed dealing with the files that would have columns change from date to currency or vice versa part way through the file for single columns (really really hate dealing with spreadsheet data sources). ... View more

Don't be surprised if you end up having to get your IT staff involved and talking with a SAS tech representative. Some of the policies that organizations have imposed on users may prevent writing to the locations that the SAS install requires.  ... View more

If you have an SPSS install and export the data to SAS with the correct options it should create a SAS program with Proc Format statements.  Then you may be able to modify the format to use the special characters by use of unicode. You might still have issues with seeing the results properly depending on the SAS encoding if that doesn't support the unicode characters.   If you have to rely on the SAS import for SAV files then I suspect the only option will be to write data step code to modify the values to something your system will handle and possibly write a custom formats get the special characters to display using an acceptable font and/or unicode. Which may be long task if there are many of these special values.   Without knowing the required system encoding and font used can't provide anything better at this time.   ... View more

"Stopped being recognized" implies that the key strokes had been recognized before. But that "before" often means that something in your system changed. It may help to describe any recent changes in your system. Have there been any updates to software recently? And since ctrl-F and H are system keys in many respects system changes count. Or did you change something and didn't change it back? For example in the SAS display manager the ctrl-F and H brings up a dialog box that has some options such as Find in Code and comments, Find in code only or Find in Comments only. If you set one of those options they persist until changed. So if have set Find in Comments then the find won't find anything in the code section. Or if you clicked on the Match Whole Word or Case options you might not be finding as expected.  And the Replace won't work if nothing is found.   I've had keyboard errors such that the proper codes aren't sent to the computer and keyboard models that either require additional key settings or strokes to send standard function key codes.     Also as @ChrisHemedinger mentioned which environment.   ... View more

@NewUsrStat wrote: Thank you very much for your help. Unfortunately the code that refers to the array does not work. But, anyway, how it become if the value of the variable is repeated identical? What does "array does not work"?  If code throws an error then provide the log with the code and all the messages. Copy the text from the log then on the forum open a text box in a message using the </> icon above the message window and paste the code.   If the result is not as expected then provide the data used in the form of a working data step and then provide more detail as to the expected result for the example data.   I am afraid that a generic "does not work" is very unhelpful in diagnosing problems. ... View more

To use a macro variable such as &outpath, the & meaning the following is the name of a macro variable, then prior to the use of the variable you should have a statement similar to : %let outpath = d:\thisfolder; (for Windows) or %let outpuath= drivemountpointname/thisfolder;  Or possibly other code that does similar with data step and the CALL SYMPUTX option or Proc SQL code with and INTO instruction to write results into a variable named Outpath.   In the case of canned programs from a SAS course this is usually done in either a set  up program or there is an instruction to uncomment a bit of code and replace some example text with the path on your system. I would look in your instructions for a %let statement to modify.   ... View more

Dealing with such overlapping intervals you may have to provide some additional rules. Such as this case where a second starts within another interval but extends past the discharge of a previous interval. ID AdmitDate DischargeDate 1 1/1/2025 2/4/2025 1 1/17/2025 3/23/2025 What would you do in this case?   If, and this is a pretty big if in some situations you actually do only want the "initial", defined as the earliest admit date then on approach might be to sort but ID and Admit date. Then with the sorted data you might be able to use something like this: Data want; set datasorted; by id admitdate; if first.id; run; If the data is sorted by id and admitdate, assumes admitdate is a SAS date value numeric and hopefully with a date type format applied. The BY statement creates automatic variables for each variable that are referenced as First.variablename or Last.variable which are numeric 1/0 valued variables that SAS will treat as true/false to test if a value is the first or last of a given by group. So the IF First.ID, a subsetting IF, keeps only the observations with the first occurrence of an ID value.   However the above likely will not work if there are multiple admit sets, such as ID 1 having another admit 05/05/2025.   So a more complete description of likely scenarios and a few more rules are needed. ... View more