SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this

pri26 — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 09:05:54 GMT

Hi,

I don't understand why the answer to this is a and not b?

Re: SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this

ChrisNZ — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 09:21:33 GMT

WORD is set when AMOUNT=7.

It is not reset when AMOUNT changes.

Re: SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this

ed_sas_member — Sun, 16 Feb 2020 09:34:56 GMT

Hi @pri26

If you execute the code step by step:

first, amount is set to 7

Then SAS checks the IF condition:
- if amount = 5 then word = "CAT"; FALSE
- else if amount = 7 then word = "DOG"; TRUE -> so the value of word is set to 'DOG'
- else word = "NoNE !!!"; FALSE

Finally, the value of amount is set to 5:

NB: it would have been better to have a LENGTH statement to define the word variable. As it is missing here, the length is set by default to 3, as it is the length of the first value proposed for this variable in the IF condition ('CAT'). It doesn't matter here as 'DOG' has the same number of letters than 'CAT'. But you can test to set amount to 3 for example, you will see that the 'ELSE' statement is true and that is displays 'NoN' and not 'NoNE !!!'

Best,

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SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this

Re: SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this

Re: SAS IF ELSE - I don't understand the answer to this