topic Re: Change text to blank(NULL) in New SAS User

Change text to blank(NULL)

SASPhile — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:41:37 GMT

There are some text fields that have value "not assigned". how to change it " " for all text fields that have that value in all datasets in a library?

i.e all occurences of "not assigned" change to " "

Re: Change text to blank(NULL)

Reeza — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:45:40 GMT

If varName = ‘not assigned” then call missing(varName);

CALL MISSING() would set this to missing.

SAS doesn't really have the concept of ‘null’ as other languages do, but it has missing.

Re: Change text to blank(NULL)

SASPhile — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:57:50 GMT

there are 100's of variables in multiple datasets

Re: Change text to blank(NULL)

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 16:01:38 GMT

@SASPhile wrote:

there are 100's of variables in multiple datasets

Which means you have a serious conceptual issue. You should take care of that when you import the data in the first place.

Re: Change text to blank(NULL)

Reeza — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 16:02:00 GMT

Fun. Write a macro then that does it for one data set and then call it for all. You can use _character_ to reference all the character variables in a data set and use an array loop to set it.

Re: Change text to blank(NULL)

ballardw — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:55:15 GMT

@Kurt_Bremser wrote:

@SASPhile wrote:

there are 100's of variables in multiple datasets

Which means you have a serious conceptual issue. You should take care of that when you import the data in the first place.

Quite so.

I have several custom informats depending on the project that turn various text strings such as N/A, UNK, or "(NO DATA)" and "(NOTHING ENTERED)" to missing, or "special missing" as needed, when reading the files.