topic Re: Specifying decimal places for numeric variables in proc report? in SAS Programming

Specifying decimal places for numeric variables in proc report?

SAS93 — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 15:46:45 GMT

I have three character variables (percent, lower CL, upper CL) that I pulled from a Crosstab table. They are numeric (length = 8, format = 7.4), and when I print out the table, it gives values that have (as expected) 4 decimal places.

I'm trying to change that to 1 decimal place, retaining any trailing zeros so when I run a proc report, all the values are visually even with each other & easier to read.

I've tried a variety of approaches that aren't quite working; I have found something (even if it doesn't make sense...) that gets close to what I want using the code below; the code iterates through a list of variables I previously defined so I don't have to run the code for each variable one at a time. It then concatenates and formats the values for the proc report, printing it out to a Word document.

ODS HTML;
%macro dothisb;
	** WORD output, once everything is printed;
		ods rtf file="\PATHWAY\Report_Tables..rtf" 
			startpage=no noKEEPN; 
			options nodate nonumber orientation=portrait; 
		TITLE;	
	    %do i=1 %to %sysfunc(countw(&crossnames));
	         %let thisname=%scan(&crossnames,&i,%str( ));

			** Create Simplified crosstabs from earlier proc surveyfreq;
				Data year2_&thisname;
				Set year_&thisname;
					DROP Table intended F_: WgtFreq Percent LowerCL UpperCL _SkipLine;
	
					/* CHAR --> NUMERIC */
						Row_Percent=input(RowPercent, 4.1);
						Lower_CL=input(RowLowerCL, 4.1);
						Upper_CL=input(RowUpperCL, 4.1);	
				Run; 

			** Format Simplified tables-- Concatenate % and 95% CLs;
				Data year3_&thisname;
				Set year2_&thisname;	

					/* Percent formatting */
						Percent=(Row_Percent||"% ");
					/* Confidence Interval Formatting */
						Confidence=("("||Lower_CL||"-"||Upper_CL||")");

					DROP RowLowerCL RowUpperCL ;
					Label Percent="%";
					Label Confidence="95% CL";
					Label combined="% (95% CL)";
				Run;

			** PROC REPORT;
				Proc report data=year3_&thisname out=report_&thisname 
					nowd
					 STYLE(report) = [rules=none frame=hsides background=white cellspacing=0 cellpadding=.05] 
					 STYLE(header) = [foreground=black background=white	cellheight=.40in 
							borderbottomwidth=2.0pt borderbottomcolor=black
							bordertopwidth=.5pt bordertopcolor=white
							borderleftwidth=.5pt borderleftcolor=white
							borderrightwidth=.5pt borderrightcolor=white]
					;

					Column &thisname YY4_DOB,(Percent Confidence) dummyvar;

						Define	&thisname / order=internal group 
								style(column) = {vjust=top just=left
									borderleftcolor=white borderleftwidth=.5pt
									borderrightcolor=white borderrightwidth=.5pt paddingright=.05in};

						Define yy4_DOB / "Year" across
								style(column) = {vjust=top just=Middle
									borderleftcolor=white borderleftwidth=.5pt
									borderrightcolor=white borderrightwidth=.5pt paddingleft=.05in};

						Define Percent / display 
								style(column) = {cellheight=.40in cellwidth=0.55in
									vjust=top just=left
									borderleftcolor=white borderleftwidth=.5pt
									borderrightcolor=white borderrightwidth=.5pt paddingright=.05in};

						Define Confidence / display
								style(column) = {cellheight=.40in cellwidth=0.75in
									vjust=top just=middle
									borderleftcolor=white borderleftwidth=.5pt
									borderrightcolor=black borderrightwidth=.5pt paddingleft=.05in};

						Define dummyvar / computed noprint ;
						 compute dummyvar;
						 dummyvar = 1;
						 endcomp;
				Run;
		%end;
	ODS rtf CLOSE;
	%mend;
%dothisb


*Invoke;
%dothisb

However, I have some problems. The original values look like this:

Year	dpinsur	RowPercent	RowLowerCL	RowUpperCL
2016	None	1.7935	0.2168	3.3702
2016	Private	58.3730	53.3669	63.3792
2016	Public	39.8334	34.8675	44.7994
2017	None	1.8858	0.4645	3.3071
2017	Private	59.7053	55.0038	64.4067
2017	Public	38.4089	33.7411	43.0767
2018	None	0.2916	0.0000	0.6793
2018	Private	65.5822	60.9709	70.1935
2018	Public	34.1263	29.5189	38.7336
2019	None	1.4170	0.0000	2.9249
2019	Private	53.5578	47.5044	59.6111
2019	Public	45.0252	38.9781	51.0723
2020	None	0.6038	0.0000	1.3675
2020	Private	61.9009	56.0220	67.7798
2020	Public	37.4953	31.6267	43.3639

And my proc report sometimes gives values like this, where some values are not being rounded correctly or the zeros from the 95% Confidence limits are not being carried over like I want.

	Year
	2016		2017		2018		2019		2020
Insurance Status	%	95% CL	%	95% CL	%	95% CL	%	95% CL	%	95% CL
None	1.79%	(0.21-3.37)	1.88%	( 0- 3.3)	0.29%	( .-0.67)	1.41%	( .-2.92)	0.6%	( .-1.36)
Private	58.3%	(53.3-63.3)	59.7%	(55-64)	65.5%	(60-70.1)	53.5%	(47.5-59.6)	61%	(56-67.7)
Public	39.8%	(34.8-44.7)	38.4%	(33.7-43)	34.1%	(29.5-38.7)	45%	(38-51)	37.4%	(31.6-43.3)

Like I've said, I've tried a variety of ways to work around this, but haven't found one that gets it totally right. Any help would be greatly appreciated; I've been tinkering with this for hours.

Re: Specifying decimal places for numeric variables in proc report?

PaigeMiller — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 16:19:03 GMT

Since you haven't provided any example data, I can't test this, but I think the problem is here:

Data year3_&thisname;
				Set year2_&thisname;	

					/* Percent formatting */
						Percent=(Row_Percent||"% ");
					/* Confidence Interval Formatting */
						Confidence=("("||Lower_CL||"-"||Upper_CL||")");
					DROP RowLowerCL RowUpperCL ;
					Label Percent="%";
					Label Confidence="95% CL";
					Label combined="% (95% CL)";
				Run;

where you could format things as in:

Confidence=("("||put(Lower_CL,4.1)||"-"||put(Upper_CL,4.1)||")");

I would also suggest that instead of creating these character strings for PROC REPORT, you use Lower_CL as a numeric variable and just to the right of it in your PROC REPORT, you have Upper_CL as a numeric variable. By using numeric variables here instead of character strings, I think things work out more cleanly and now you don't have to convert numeric to character. In fact, by working with numeric values, you can then use the STYLE= option in PROC REPORT to globally set the format so that the number of decimal places is one (or whatever else you want it to be).

Re: Specifying decimal places for numeric variables in proc report?

ballardw — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 17:21:48 GMT

Please consider what you write for descriptions. This bit is contradictory.

I have three character variables (percent, lower CL, upper CL) that I pulled from a Crosstab table. 
They are numeric (length = 8, format = 7.4),

A character variable cannot have a format of 7.4. Your code shows that you have three numeric variables that you use to create TWO character variables, Percent and Confidence, which are the ones displayed in Proc Report.

Second do you know what "implied decimal" refers to when used with an Informat?

Row_Percent=input(RowPercent, 4.1);

may not be doing what you think it does for some values. Example:

This code demonstrates some possibly unexpected by you behaviors:

data example;
  input RowPercent 4.1;
datalines;
1
12
123
1234
123.4
12.34
;

proc print data=example;
run;

Which yields this result:

Row Obs Percent 1 0.1 2 1.2 3 12.3 4 123.4 5 123.0 6 12.3 When you use an informat such as 4.1 and there is no decimal in the value then you are forcing a decimal into the result.

When the number of characters exceeds 4, observation 5 reading 123.4, then things are truncated to the 4 characters.

Almost certainly you need to use a simple input with 4. or possibly larger field.

If part of your purpose is to align things "nicely" then you better make sure you are using a Fixed width font in the columns as there is no promise that a created text character will display aligned with a proportional font. See below:

1111111111

0000000000

Ten ones and ten zeroes, take up different amounts of space in the default proportional font that is likely displaying this window.

With numeric value you can use one of the format like Dw.p or BestDw.p which will attempt to align values by decimal.