topic Change Variable Type in SAS Programming

Change Variable Type

cbuon — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 02:20:12 GMT

Disclaimer: I'm brand new to SAS. But I've created a new data set named "employee_info" and I cannot figure out how to change the variable type of the salary column to currency. This is the code I get, which does not specify the individual variables:

Re: Change Variable Type

Reeza — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 02:28:22 GMT

PROC IMPORT doesn’t allow you to change types, but I don’t thing that’s your issue anyways.

SAS only has two types, numeric and character. Which of those is your variable? There is a currency format that can be applied, which may be what you’re looking to do.

@cbuon wrote:

Disclaimer: I'm brand new to SAS. But I've created a new data set named "employee_info" and I cannot figure out how to change the variable type of the salary column to currency. This is the code I get, which does not specify the individual variables:

Re: Change Variable Type

cbuon — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 03:25:32 GMT

Thank you for responding! The format type is numeric, how do I apply the currency format?

Re: Change Variable Type

Reeza — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 03:50:15 GMT

data sample;
x= 100000;
format x dollar12.;
run;

proc print data=sample;run;

Use a FORMAT statement as above.

Re: Change Variable Type

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 07:32:49 GMT

When posting code and/or logs, follow the advice here: https://communities.sas.com/t5/help/faqpage/faq-category-id/posting?nobounce

Typing text from pictures is tedious and unnecessary work.

To add to @Reeza: assigning a format does not change the type or the contents of a variable (the type can't be changed at all), but it changes the way the contents are displayed. You still need to use the raw value in comparisons, for example.