topic Re: Creating a variable from three others in SAS Programming

Creating a variable from three others

sherineeltoukhy — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 01:58:47 GMT

Hello,

I am working with a nationally representative data (three waves). The stratum (ststr) variable is not available for one wave, which I need to create. Here is what I got from the person who responded to my inquiry about the missing variable:

"STSTR is a five digit number that combines the values for state_flips (first two characters), geostrs_samp (third and fourth character), and denstrs_samp (final character). You need to covert state_flips, geostrs_samp, denstrs_samp into character variables first. Please add “0” to single digit number if state_flips or geostrs_samp only have one digit. For example, state_flips = 1, then add 0 at beginning. It should be 01. After combining three values together, you could either convert it back a numeric variable or keep it as a character variable."

I am not sure how to do these steps. I found the code below that allows me to break up a variable into two and extract certain characters into each of the new variables. But I could not find anything that will help me create the ststr variable. If you can also help me with adding "0" to the one-digit variables, I would greatly appreciate it. Please help.

data pieces_parts;
input id $ 1-9;
length state $ 2;
state = substr(id,1,2);
num = input(substr(id,7,3),3.);
datalines;
NYXXXX123
NJ1234567
;
proc print data= pieces_parts noobs;
title "Listing of Data Set PIECES_PARTS";
run;

Re: Creating a variable from three others

Astounding — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 02:15:57 GMT

Evidently, these variables are all numeric:

state_flips
geostr_samp
denstr_samp

To create a character string out of all these, you would use (in a DATA step):

ststr = put(state_flips, z2.) || put(geostr_samp, z2.) || put(denstr_samp, 1.);

Re: Creating a variable from three others

Reeza — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 02:23:36 GMT

PUT() converts numbers to characters.
Zd formats displays your numeric data with leading zero.

CATT() will concatenate the variables without any extraneous spaces or padding, because you can often get them added in when using other methods.

Re: Creating a variable from three others

ballardw — Thu, 17 Oct 2019 15:52:26 GMT

Are you sure that the statement was "state flips" not "state fips"? FIPS is a standard coding system, Federal Information Processin Standards.

SAS even has functions that use the FIPS coding such as Pipstate, Fipname, Fipnamel, Stfips, that convert Fips codes to state names or state abbreviations to Fip values.