topic Rename a variable that has a space in it in SAS Programming

Rename a variable that has a space in it

ayosas — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 17:32:11 GMT

the variable has a space in it, I checked using proc contents and both the label and var name have a space in them. I tried renaming using the rename option

this is the error I get

77 rename education level = education_level;

ERROR: Alphabetic prefixes for enumerated variables (education-level) are different.

ERROR: Old and new variable name specifications for RENAME must be of the same type. Statement is ignored.

ERROR 79-322: Expecting a -.

Re: Rename a variable that has a space in it

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 17:35:54 GMT

For non-standard names, you have to use name literals:

rename 'education level'n = education_level;

Re: Rename a variable that has a space in it

PaigeMiller — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 17:36:30 GMT

You need

options validvarname=any;

and then you can rename with

rename 'education level'n = education_level;

notice the quotes and the letter n after the final quote

Re: Rename a variable that has a space in it

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 17:36:40 GMT

PS you can avoid this by issuing

options validvarname = v7;

before importing the data into SAS.

Re: Rename a variable that has a space in it

ayosas — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 19:00:42 GMT

So if this is an excel file, this option should go before proc import?

Re: Rename a variable that has a space in it

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 19:29:18 GMT

Yes. SAS will then convert the names to valid SAS names by replacing invalid characters with underlines.