topic Re: SAS declare existing variables as array in SAS Programming

SAS declare existing variables as array

rdum96 — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 18:59:06 GMT

Hi,

I have a dataset with columns - User_id Condition1 Condition 9 Condition 11....... Condition 102

I want to perform array functions, is there any way to declare conditions as an array? The problem is the numbers aren't uniform, ie, it isn't Condition1, Condition2, Condition3 and so on.

I was thinking something like:

array conds{*} condition: ;

But it didn't work.

Thanks.

Re: SAS declare existing variables as array

ErikLund_Jensen — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 19:18:10 GMT

Hi @rdum96

You can use the form

array c $ cond:;

The colon after cond covers all variables beginning with cond. They must be same type, numeric or character. If they are char the $ sign is needed.

Re: SAS declare existing variables as array

rdum96 — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 19:33:39 GMT

That worked! Thank you!

Re: SAS declare existing variables as array

ballardw — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 21:47:13 GMT

If the variables already exist the $ in the array is not needed:

data _null_;
   set sashelp.class (obs=1);
   array c name sex;
   do i=1 to dim(c);
     put "Value is: " c[i];
   end;
run;

Log shows:

121  data _null_;
122     set sashelp.class (obs=1);
123     array c name sex;
124     do i=1 to dim(c);
125       put "Value is: " c[i];
126     end;
127  run;

Value is: Alfred
Value is: M
NOTE: There were 1 observations read from the data set SASHELP.CLASS.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.00 seconds

No warnings or anything, output as expected.

I would not say "do not add the $", just saying not required.