topic Re: Cannot recode using IF THEN ELSE in SAS Programming

Cannot recode using IF THEN ELSE

SSin — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:29:36 GMT

I am trying to recode a character variable "Gender" with responses Male, Female and NA.

I used

data =  WORK.IMPORT2; 

if 'Gender' = 'Male'   or  'Gender' = 'Female' 'Gender' = 'NA' ;
if 'Gender' = 'Male' then male= 1; else if 'Gender' = 'Female' 'NA' then male =0;

and

If 'Gender' = 'Male' then male =1; else male=0;
If 'Gender' = 'Female' then female =1; else female=0;

Both of these are not working and giving me same error message "Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order". Could you please help me how to recode? I attached SAS file.

Many thanks!

Re: Cannot recode using IF THEN ELSE

gamotte — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:37:39 GMT

Hello,

The correct syntax for a data step is :

data <output_dataset_name>;

set <input_dataset_name>;

[...]

Also you are testing the equality of strings 'Gender' and 'Male'/'Female' so your tests will always be false.

I think you mean the Gender variable so you have to drop the quotes :

if Gender='Male' then ...

Re: Cannot recode using IF THEN ELSE

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 09:37:40 GMT

Don't overcomplicate it, use a select() block:

data have;
input gender $;
datalines;
male
female
NA
;

data want;
set have;
select (gender);
  when ('male') do;
    male = 1;
    female = 0;
  end;
  when ('female') do;
    male = 0;
    female = 1;
  end;
  when ('NA') do;
    male = 0;
    female = 0;
  end;
end;
run;

proc print data=want noobs;
run;

Result:

gender    male    female

male        1        0  
female      0        1  
NA          0        0

Re: Cannot recode using IF THEN ELSE

ballardw — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 15:09:17 GMT

@SSin wrote:

I am trying to recode a character variable "Gender" with responses Male, Female and NA.

I used
data =  WORK.IMPORT2; 

if 'Gender' = 'Male'   or  'Gender' = 'Female' 'Gender' = 'NA' ;
if 'Gender' = 'Male' then male= 1; else if 'Gender' = 'Female' 'NA' then male =0;
and
If 'Gender' = 'Male' then male =1; else male=0;
If 'Gender' = 'Female' then female =1; else female=0; 
Both of these are not working and giving me same error message "Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order". Could you please help me how to recode? I attached SAS file.

Many thanks!

In none of the code above do you reference a Variable that might contain values of 'Male' or 'Female'. Variables are not placed in quotes when you want to examine or modify the values of the variable. Actually there are very few times a variable name should appear in quotes generally.