topic PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables in New SAS User

PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

aloou — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 09:51:14 GMT

Hello every one,

could you please tell me how to run a proc means/summary on character variiables:

proc means data=x print missing n nmiss;

var _CHARACTER_;

ods output summary=y;

run;

the above code is returning an error.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

Amir — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:35:38 GMT

Please provide some sample input data in the form of a data step (as per this article) and also show the log containing the error message you have.

Thanks

Amir.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

ed_sas_member — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:38:35 GMT

Hi @aloou ,

Do you want to use character variables to calculate statistics on categories?

if so, you can add the "class" statement.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

andreas_lds — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:50:25 GMT

You can't use char-variables in the var-statement.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

PaigeMiller — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:57:38 GMT

@aloou wrote:

could you please tell me how to run a proc means/summary on character variiables:

Could you please tell us what you would like PROC MEANS or PROC SUMMARY to do with your character variables? You can't compute a mean of character variables. You can't compute a standard deviation. So what is the desired output of PROC MEANS or PROC SUMMARY (or any other procedure) from your character variables?

Perhaps you want to use PROC FREQ on character variables? PROC FREQ produces a count (and percent) of each level of your character variables.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

Ksharp — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:02:48 GMT

Usine SQL instead.

proc sql;
select n(sex) as n,nmiss(sex) as nmiss
 from sashelp.class;
quit;

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

aloou — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:39:36 GMT

Mr Paige i hope that you are doing well.

Yess thats exactly what i want to do, count and percentage of char type variables.

Re: PROC MEANS/SUMMARY character variables

ed_sas_member — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 13:47:29 GMT

Hi @aloou ,

So you should use PROC FREQ. Here is the basic syntax:

proc freq data=have noprint;
   table var_char / out=want;
run;