topic Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement? in SAS Programming

what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

jimmychoi — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 03:18:05 GMT

Hi, I'm trying to understand the exact range for a format value statement.

This is my code:

data courses;
	input exam;
	datalines;
	0.5
	1
	1.5
	49.5
	50
	50.5
	51
	51.5
	52
	;
run;

proc format;
	value score  1-50 = 'Fail'
		    51-100 = 'Pass';
run;
proc report data = courses nowd;
column exam;
define exam / display format = score.;
run;

The complied result is:
0.5 -> 0.5

1 -> fail

1.5 -> fail

49.5 -> fail

50 -> fail

50.5 -> 50.5

51 -> pass

51.5 -> pass

52 -> pass

Thus, it's not hard to conclude that the range '1-50' is identical to 1 <= somewhere <= 50,

in a similar vein, 51-100 can be interpreted as 51 <= somewhere <= 100

but, when I change the above program to this (second range was modified):

proc format;
	value score 1-50 = 'Fail'
		    50-100 = 'Pass';
run;

while the first range covers the identical range (1 <= somewhere <= 50), the second one changes, covering: 50<somewhere <=100.

The second range does not cover 50.

Although this may be natural when ranges are specified consecutively and continuously, this is confusing.

Can anyone tell me why the complier interpretes this way?

Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

Tom — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 03:26:13 GMT

I really don't understand the question.

Values that are not covered by any of the ranges in the format are displayed normally instead.

Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

jimmychoi — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 03:36:45 GMT

Hi Tom, question was:
when format range is declared as 1-50, 51-100, then the value 50 is, of course, part of range 1-50.

Now, when format range is declared as 1-50, 50-100, then the value 50 is, part of range 1-50.
Why is that? Why not part of 50-100 range?

Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

Tom — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 04:17:41 GMT

@jimmychoi wrote:
Hi Tom, question was:
when format range is declared as 1-50, 51-100, then the value 50 is, of course, part of range 1-50.

Now, when format range is declared as 1-50, 50-100, then the value 50 is, part of range 1-50.
Why is that? Why not part of 50-100 range?

Because that is how SAS designed it to behave. If you want to control which range the dividing value belongs to use the < symbol to exclude it from one of them.

http://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.4&docsetId=proc&docsetTarget=n03qskwoints2an1ispy57plwrn9.htm&locale=en#n03qskwoints2an1ispy57plwrn9

Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

Ksharp — Sun, 29 Jul 2018 10:49:25 GMT

That is the way sas do . If you want include 50 too, add an option.

proc format;
	value score(multilabel)  1-50 = 'Fail'
		    50-100 = 'Pass';
run;

Re: what is the exact range for FORMAT VALUE statement?

ballardw — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 15:12:12 GMT

@jimmychoi wrote:
Hi Tom, question was:
when format range is declared as 1-50, 51-100, then the value 50 is, of course, part of range 1-50.

Now, when format range is declared as 1-50, 50-100, then the value 50 is, part of range 1-50.
Why is that? Why not part of 50-100 range?

In previous versions of SAS that format with 50 in both ranges would have generated an error.

There are 2 characters involved with ranges: - < . - by itself includes the end values. If you use 50 <- 100 then you are using "greater than but not equal to 50 up to and including 100", 50 -< 100 is using "50 to but not including 100" and 50< - <100 is "between 50 and 100 excluding 100 and 50". This last might be of use if you want to assign something like: 100= 'Perfect'.

Your initial format did not assign formatted values to anything between 50 and 51. Perhaps you wanted

50<- 100.