topic Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure in New SAS User

Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure

JackZ295 — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 18:00:18 GMT

Is there a code that you can use within a proc freq procedure to find a range of values for a categorical variable? For example, if you are dividing work experience (years) into various categories (<=2, 3-9, 10-14, >15), is there a way to find a range for the number of years worked? Thanks!

Re: Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure

PaigeMiller — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 18:16:18 GMT

... find a range of values for a categorical variable?

Years worked is categorical. PROC FREQ will automatically find all levels in the data set, so it seems to me that you could then determine visually from the PROC FREQ output the "range" (although "range", "min" and "max" is not really defined for categorical variables).

Re: Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure

ballardw — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 18:46:12 GMT

Creating groups from a numeric sort of continuous variable is often done using a custom format.

Example:

proc format library=work;
value yearrange
0 - 2 = '<=2'
3 - 9 = '3 to 9'
10-14 = '10 to 14'
15 - high='15+'
;
run;

proc freq data=have;
   tables yearvariable;
   format yearvariable yearrange.;
run;

Above is designed to work with integer years. The proc format range descriptors on the left side of the = signs above include the ability to do strictly less than or strictly greater than using the < in conjunction with the - interval indicator.

A nice thing about formats is you could describe a different set of ranges such as 0 - 9 and 9+ and only have to change the format in proc freq or most other analysis procedures to use a different set of ranges.

Re: Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure

Reeza — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 20:43:58 GMT

Are you looking for PROC RANK, which can create equal sized buckets or something else?

Re: Finding the Range or the Max, Min in a Proc Freq Procedure

ballardw — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 21:46:32 GMT

@JackZ295 wrote:

Is there a code that you can use within a proc freq procedure to find a range of values for a categorical variable? For example, if you are dividing work experience (years) into various categories (<=2, 3-9, 10-14, >15), is there a way to find a range for the number of years worked? Thanks!

Likely time to provide example input data and the desired result for that input data.