topic Re: Missing Value in SAS Programming

Missing Value

BalajiBollu — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 12:18:57 GMT

I have a numeric variable and it has some missing values (represented as '.')... I want to convert it as a character variable with a length 1. But i don't want '.' to be converted as '.' itself instead i need it to be a space (missing notation for character variable). How to do this?

Re: Missing Value

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 12:28:58 GMT

Since the character variable will be initialized to blank anyway, you need only make the put() conditional:

if numvar ne . then charvar = put(numvar,1.);

Re: Missing Value

BalajiBollu — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 12:32:04 GMT

Thank you!

Re: Missing Value

RW9 — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 12:42:00 GMT

Another useful method - if you have to do lots of these, is to set options missing before and after the code:

options missing="";

...your code...

options missing=".";

Re: Missing Value

ballardw — Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:01:02 GMT

A third option is to use a custom format. Example

proc format ;
value myvalue
low-high=[best8.]
other=' '
;
run;

Using the above format would display all non-missing values using the best8. SAS format, any other format could be used inside the [ ] and other values as a blank. This approach has the advantage of allowing you to display more characters without changing any variable lengths that a character value would but will appear in the output. Changing the format to, or creating a different format that is similar, to:

proc format ;
value myvalue
low-high=[best8.]
other='Not Recorded'
;
run;

would display "Not Recorded" or perhaps other more meaningful text in output for the missing values.