topic Re: Change a name of variable in SAS Programming

Change a name of variable

gbatista — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:18:10 GMT

I'm trying to change a name of variable but the variable inside the excel file has spaces and a hyphen (idk if this interferes in anything) and when i'm putting it to assign a new name,a parte of it is in red and i do not can change

photo 1: file in excel replicated with the column name to be changed

photo 2: the code i'm trying to do

photo 3: the error

Re: Change a name of variable

gbatista — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:18:59 GMT

photo 3**

Re: Change a name of variable

Reeza — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:32:10 GMT

Post your code as text not images.

You forgot the RENAME statement for starters. Your code would reassign variables, not rename them.

Here's how a rename should work.

data class;
set sashelp.class;
rename sex = gender;
run;

Verify the actual names in your data set using PROC CONTENTS:

proc contents data=class;run;

Make sure to also refer to the name using the name literal format.

Re: Change a name of variable

PaigeMiller — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:45:55 GMT

For large datasets, the DATA step approach using RENAME is incredibly inefficient.

Better: you should get in the habit of using PROC DATASETS if all you want to do is rename a variable.

proc datasets library=work nolist;
    modify yourdatasetname;
    change oldvariablename=newvariablename;
run;
quit;

Re: Change a name of variable

Reeza — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 16:48:19 GMT

There's also a WHERE clause in that code though....

Re: Change a name of variable

PaigeMiller — Wed, 19 Jan 2022 17:01:58 GMT

@Reeza wrote:
There's also a WHERE clause in that code though....

I said: "... get in the habit of using PROC DATASETS if all you want to do is rename a variable."

So I think we agree.