topic Replacing NA with 0 in SAS Programming

Replacing NA with 0

MicheleB0108 — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:00:33 GMT

I am trying to replace the NA values for 0 in the 5 markdown variables. The first time, I tried using the method from one of these other community message, and it worked. I took down notes and tried it again and now it isn't working. Instead what it's doing is creating a new variable field "NA" with no values in it. I attached pictures of the import data resulting from the code I'm using. I have little to no experience coding so it may be something relatively obvious! I'm using the University Edition, Basic 3.8.

DATA work.import;
	set work.import;
	array change _character_;
		do over change;
		if change=NA then change=0;
		end;
run;

Re: Replacing NA with 0

Jagadishkatam — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:08:25 GMT

Please try the below code, I guess the NA need to be in quotes also the 0 as the 5 variables are character.

DATA work.import;
	set work.import;
	array change _character_;
		do over change;
		if change='NA' then change='0';
		end;
run;

Re: Replacing NA with 0

gamotte — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:23:48 GMT

Hello,

Are your variables really of character nature or did the import make them character because

of "NA" observations ?

If your variables are numeric then use numeric columns to store them.

You can use an informat to interpret "NA" as missing values or zeros :

proc format;
    invalue mynum
        'NA'=0;
run;

data have;
    informat x mynum.;
    input x;
    cards;
1
2
NA
5
NA
3
;
run;

Re: Replacing NA with 0

PaigeMiller — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 14:30:46 GMT

Adding on to the excellent advice by @gamotte, you might be better served as keeping NA as missing rather than numeric zero, which can screw up averages and any other statistics you want to compute.

proc format;
    invalue mynum 'NA'=.;
run;