topic how to use case statements efficiently in the shortest way(one line preferred) possible in SAS Programming

how to use case statements efficiently in the shortest way(one line preferred) possible

inquistive — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:31:06 GMT

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a condensed way to write the following (repetitive and hard coded) block of code. Is there a way to do so in macro or something else? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

case when gender = 'M' then A else ' ' end) as MA,

case when gender = 'M’ then B else . end) as MB,

case when gender = 'M' then C else . end) as MC,

case when gender = 'F' then A else ' ' end) as FA,

case when gender = 'F' then B else . end) as FB,

case when gender = 'F' then C else . end) as FC

(and so on...)

FROM student;

Re: how to use case statements efficiently in the shortest way(one line preferred) possible

Reeza — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:40:25 GMT

A data step is probably more efficient for starters. Can you explain a bit more about what you're trying to do here overall?
Not sure a one liner is possible if you're creating multiple variables. This looks possibly like a transpose though, which may be better in PROC TRANSPOSE.

@inquistive wrote:

Hello everyone,

I am looking for a condensed way to write the following (repetitive and hard coded) block of code. Is there a way to do so in macro or something else? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

case when gender = 'M' then A else ' ' end) as MA,

case when gender = 'M’ then B else . end) as MB,

case when gender = 'M' then C else . end) as MC,

case when gender = 'F' then A else ' ' end) as FA,

case when gender = 'F' then B else . end) as FB,

case when gender = 'F' then C else . end) as FC

(and so on...)

FROM student;

Re: how to use case statements efficiently in the shortest way(one line preferred) possible

inquistive — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:46:29 GMT

This is just a part of a larger query. In this part I am trying to grouping the data for easier analysis.

Re: how to use case statements efficiently in the shortest way(one line preferred) possible

Reeza — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 20:54:40 GMT

Then I suspect the answer is no, based on what you've shown so far. I strongly suspect there's other ways to get what you need but SQL isn't particularly great at wrangling data efficiently across many variables sometimes.