topic Re: accessing variable names through loop in SAS Data Management

accessing variable names through loop

ilikesas — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 22:47:16 GMT

I have the following:

data have;
input num x1 x2 x3;
datalines;
1 . . .
2 . . .
3 . . .
;
run;

suppose i want to make a multiplication table (pseudo code)

data want;

set have;

do i=1 to 3

x&i = number*i;

end

run;

Basically, the variables x1-x3 contain in them information, namely, the multiplication factor, so I want using a loop to "assemble" the variable name.

Thank you

Re: accessing variable names through loop

VDD — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 23:31:58 GMT

data have;
input num x1 x2 x3;
datalines;
1 . . .
2 . . .
3 . . . 
;
run;
data want;
set have;
array x{*} $ x1-x3;
do i=1 to 3;
  x[i] = num*i;
  if i = 3 then output;
end;
run;

Re: accessing variable names through loop

Tom — Mon, 12 Aug 2019 02:28:11 GMT

@VDD Why did you include the OUTPUT statement?

Don't tell SAS that the array has character variables when they are already defined as numeric should cause an error. Also note there is no need to tell SAS how many elements are in the array when you have listed the names. It will just count them.

array x x1-x3;

and you don't have to count them either, use the DIM() function.

do i=1 to dim(x);