topic Re: concatenating two variable in SAS Programming

concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 03:18:36 GMT

data staff;

JobCategory='FA';

JobLevel='1';

JobCategory=JobCategory||JobLevel;

run;

Q: What is the value of the variable JOBCATEGORY in the output data set?

Ans: FA

My question is , why not FA1. it did not use the below condition like

JobCategory=JobCategory||JobLevel;

please help me to understand this

Re: concatenating two variable

SASKiwi — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 03:30:27 GMT

The variable JobCategory has a length of only two characters when defined by this statement:

JobCategory='FA';

So it doesn't matter what you try to concatenate on the end because it will always be truncated back to two characters dropping anything beyond that.

Re: concatenating two variable

novinosrin — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 03:30:22 GMT

Hi @souji

That's because the intial assignment of JobCategory='FA' assigns a length of 2 bytes and so the concatenated value is truncated to 2 bytes in the output.

To verify,

proc contents data=staff;
run;

# Variable Type Len

1 JobCategory Char 2
2 JobLevel Char 1

Re: concatenating two variable

ghosh — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 03:30:54 GMT

That's because the length is set too 2. Use a length statement first to assign the variable more space

concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 04:00:45 GMT

it work like this if

data staff;

length JobCategory $4;

JobCategory='FA';

JobLevel='1';

Job=JobCategory||JobLevel; /* if I add new variable like Job, then I am getting Job variable value FA1 */

run;

****************

if I give JobCategory=JobCategory||JobLevel; with length statement , it is not given the JobCategory value FA1, it is only FA

sum statement missing values

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 04:27:12 GMT

data Passengers;

if OrigPassengers=. then

OrigPassengers=100;

TransPassengers=100;

OrigPassengers=.;

NonPaying=10;

TotalPassengers=OrigPassengers+TransPassengers;

run;

please make me understand this, why the TotalPassengers is missing numeric value in the output

Re: concatenating two variable

ed_sas_member — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:09:57 GMT

Hi @souji

In addition to adding a LENGTH statement, you also need to manage the leading and trailing blanks of each variable to concatenate. You can use the STRIP() function to do that.

data staff;
	length JobCategory $3.;
	JobCategory='FA';
	JobLevel='1';
	JobCategory=strip(JobCategory)||strip(JobLevel);
run;

Best,

Re: sum statement missing values

ed_sas_member — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:18:23 GMT

Hi @souji

In you data step, OrigPassengers is a numeric variable (by default, its length is 8).

It is first set to a missing value (.), then to 100 and then to a missing value.

So a the end, when you compute TotalPassengers = OrigPassengers+TransPassengers, you compute TotalPassengers = . + 100

-> SAS can't add a missing value to 100, so the result is a missing value.

Best,

Re: sum statement missing values

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:58:25 GMT

Thank You for the clear explanation

Re: concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:59:19 GMT

Thank You for explanation

Re: sum statement missing values

ed_sas_member — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 13:59:32 GMT

you're welcome !

sum statement missing values

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 14:13:00 GMT

Can you make me understand this as well please, and what would be the results , here they said 110

data Passengers;

if OrigPassengers= then

OrigPassengers=100;

TransPassengers=100;

OrigPassengers=.;

NonPaying=10;

TotalPassengers= sum (OrigPassengers,TransPassengers );

run;

Re: sum statement missing values

ed_sas_member — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 14:18:32 GMT

Hi @souji

I believe you mean:

data Passengers;

if OrigPassengers = . then

OrigPassengers=100;

TransPassengers=100;

OrigPassengers=.;

NonPaying=10;

TotalPassengers= sum (OrigPassengers,TransPassengers);

run;

-> in this case, TotalPassengers= sum (OrigPassengers,TransPassengers) will be equivalent to TotalPassengers= sum (.,100).

The result will be 100, because the SUM() function returns the sum of the nonmissing values.

Best,

Re: sum statement missing values

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 17:09:05 GMT

thank you very much

Re: concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 17:10:11 GMT

thank you very much

Re: concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 17:11:24 GMT

Thank You very much

Re: concatenating two variable

SASKiwi — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 21:03:08 GMT

Or if you prefer, the CATS function:

data staff;
	length JobCategory $3.;
	JobCategory='FA';
	JobLevel='1';
	JobCategory=cats(JobCategory, JobLevel);
run;

Re: concatenating two variable

souji — Sat, 04 Jan 2020 22:59:28 GMT

Thank You