topic Re: Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset in SAS Programming

Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset

deleted_user — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:25:19 GMT

Is there anyway to add new to variable to a existing permanent dataset, without re-
creating new dataset.

The permanent dataset, which i want to modify is very huge(contains millions of obs)... so, I don't want to create a new dataset....

Re: Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset

Peter_C — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:32:02 GMT

no
you can change values in existing columns
you can add new rows of values

but you cannot add additional columns without recreating the whole table (less blunt than just "no")
Message was edited by: Peter.C

Re: Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset

sbb — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:58:32 GMT

You may find the SAS data VIEW concept to be useful here, depending on your specific needs.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

Re: Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset

Flip — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:03:59 GMT

The closest you can get is Proc sql; alter table xxx add var var-spec;

It probably recreates the dataset anyway, but it seems faster than recreating in my experience.

Re: Adding New Variables to Permanent Dataset

DanielSantos — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:05:15 GMT

Alter table being the simplest solution to add a variable, will also recreate the dataset.

SAS datasets are stored into physical pages (just a unit) on a tabular form.
From there it easy to understand that there is no way yo add a new variable without rewriting the whole file.

Cheers from Portugal.

Daniel Santos @ www.cgd.pt