topic Re: Binary Values from nonbinary values in SAS Programming

Binary Values from nonbinary values

krg1140 — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:24:03 GMT

I have instructions to do the following:

The variable AUDITOR_FKEY is coded 1, 2, 3, or 4 for the “Big 4” auditors. Code the binary variable “BIGN” as 1 for “Big 4” auditors, and 0 otherwise.

However, I've never worked with binary values so I'm unsure how to do this? So far I have an if statement that reads data reg.sorted1; set reg.sorted;
if auditor_fkey =1 and auditor_fkey =2 and auditor_fkey=3 and auditor_fkey=4 then BIGN = 1;
else BIGN = 0;
run;

but this also doesn't run the correct values? Advice?

Re: Binary Values from nonbinary values

SASKiwi — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 00:40:26 GMT

A better way of doing what you want is this:

BIGN = (if auditor_fkey in (1,2,3,4));

The reason why your version doesn't work is you need to use OR not AND - AND assumes they use all 4 auditors at the same time which is impossible.

Re: Binary Values from nonbinary values

Tom — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 03:27:54 GMT

Note that SAS only has two types of variables: floating point numbers and fixed length character strings.

So I assume by "binary" they mean a numeric variable that just only zero (false) or one (true). Those are the values that SAS will return when it evaluates a boolean expression.

In your case you just want to test whether or not AUDITOR_FKEY has one of those four values.

data want;
  set have;
  bign = auditor_value in (1:4);
run;

The notation 1:4 is shorthand for the integers from 1 to 4, inclusive.

Re: Binary Values from nonbinary values

ballardw — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:41:12 GMT

Just for completeness sake, is the value of AUDITOR_FKEY ever missing? As in did you confirm it is never missing?

If there are missing values do you want to assign 0 for those?

Re: Binary Values from nonbinary values

PhilC — Mon, 29 Mar 2021 13:33:03 GMT

Because you say you are new to Boolean expressions, I'd say I think you did well enough. Does the instruction imply using ANDs or ORs? I think I would have picked ANDs based on the instructions as well. One thing that could go wrong is if AUDITOR_FKEY was a string variable type rather than numeric, as Tom said. In that case the if statement would look like:

  if auditor_fkey ="1" and auditor_fkey ="2" /*...*/
    then BIGN = 1;
    else BIGN = 0;