topic Re: Setting variable values to missing for multiple variables in SAS Programming

Setting variable values to missing for multiple variables

munitech4u — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 09:48:29 GMT

I have a set of variables which goes like a94-a114 b94-b114 and so on.

I want to set values of a94-a114 to .(dot) if its spaces.

I was trying this:

array var[21] a94-a114;

do i=1 to 21;

if var=' ' then var=.;

end;

But it says variable already exist.

RW9 — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 10:01:30 GMT

Could I check what the intent is here. It seems like you are dealing with character variables, why then would you want a numeric missing value?

Without test data I would guess at:

data want;

set have;

array a{21};

do I=1 to 21;

if a{I}=' ' then a{I}='.';

end;

run;

Should work, you are missing the quotes around the ., so its probably telling you that you are attempting to assign numeric to character.

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 02 Jul 2014 11:52:46 GMT

Could you provide information about the data set and its variables, and the actual log?

ballardw — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 17:28:33 GMT

The error is that the code is attempting to create a numeric to hold . but you have a character variable already with the same name.

stat_sas — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 18:37:22 GMT

Not sure why are you getting message but this works fine for me.

data have;
infile datalines missover;
input a1 $   a2 $   a3 $;
datalines;
a        b
c        d
e        f      g
h        i      j
;

data want(drop=i);
set have;
array var[3] a1-a3;
do i=1 to 3;
if var=' ' then var=.;
end;
run;

rcwright — Thu, 03 Jul 2014 19:01:17 GMT

Looks like you're trying to redefine a character array to numeric. Try if var=' ' then var='.'; notice the quotes around the period.