topic Re: How to conditionally delete datasets in SAS Programming

How to conditionally delete datasets

mayasak — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 22:20:03 GMT

Hi,

I need to delete observations that have ns_n ='.' or 0 but leave the rows that have a certain value of drug= 'abc' (which intrinsically has ns_n equal to '.' and 0; they have other values - uns_n and sns_n instead).

When I use this code below all rows containing ns_n ='.' or 0 are deleted including the data with drug 'abc' and I need to keep them:

Data DB_test;
set AB_2020;
if ns_n='.' then delete;
if ns_n =0 then delete;
run;

Thank you.

Re: How to conditionally delete datasets

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 22:30:42 GMT

First of all, one of your statements is wrong and works only because SAS does an automatic type conversion for you. Relying on this is considered bad practice.

Assuming your variable is numeric, do this:

if drug ne 'abc' and ns_n in (0,.) then delete;

Re: How to conditionally delete datasets

Astounding — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 00:19:29 GMT

Similar to your earlier question, you can use:

if drug='abc' or ns_n;