topic Re: Simple Dichotomous Variable Change in New SAS User

Simple Dichotomous Variable Change

krath — Tue, 03 May 2022 17:04:00 GMT

How do I change a variable Ex: Race that is already coded AA or W for African American or white into a simple "1" or "0"??? I cannot find this on SAS Help. TIA.

Re: Simple Dichotomous Variable Change

PaigeMiller — Tue, 03 May 2022 19:26:32 GMT

I suspect there is more to this problem than you have stated, but nevertheless

if race='AA' then race="1";

alternatively, assign a FORMAT to race where 'AA' is displayed as "1"

Which brings up the question, why bother? How is a value of "1" more useful than a value of "AA"?

Re: Simple Dichotomous Variable Change

Tom — Tue, 03 May 2022 17:09:13 GMT

@krath wrote:

How do I change a variable Ex: Race that is already coded AA or W for African American or white into a simple "1" or "0"??? I cannot find this on SAS Help. TIA.

Do you have character variable that has value 'AA' or 'W'?

Do you want a numeric variable? Or a character variable?

If you want a numeric variable then you need to make a new variable.

So if the variable only ever has AA or W (and non are blank or have other values) then you could just assign the result of a boolean expression to your new variable. So this step will create RACEN that will be 1 when RACE is AA and 0 otherwise.

data want;
  set have;
  racen = (race='AA');
run;