topic Re: counting variables in SAS Programming

counting variables

SVoldrich — Tue, 20 May 2014 12:52:12 GMT

Situation:

Dr. Smith has 3 addresses, I need to add a counting variable to the end of his name to indicate that all the addresses belong to him.

Dr. Smith 123 Main St

Dr. Smith 45112 East River Rd

Dr. Smith 621 Carnegie Blvd

I need to show the data as

Dr. Smith-001 123 Main St

Dr. Smith-002 45112 East River Rd

Dr. Smith-003 621 Carnegie Blvd

I don't know what this is called to be able to research how to code this.

Thanks in advance!

Re: counting variables

RW9 — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:01:21 GMT

Hi,

Try this, where name variable contains the dr.smith, and new_name would be with the number:

data inter;

set have;

retain cnt;

by name;

if _n_=1 or first.name then cnt=1;

else cnt=cnt+1;

new_name=strip(name)||put(cnt,z3.);

run;

Re: counting variables

RichardinOz — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:03:36 GMT

I think the term you want is 'Slowly Changing Dimension'. Typically this would apply where one of the addresses is regarded as current while the others are previous addresses. Again, typically, there would be 'From' and 'To' dates associated with the records to show the history. The latest record would have a null 'To' date, or one far in the future such as 31DEC9999. A separate column might also be used to flag which record is the current one, to simplify queries.

Richard

Re: counting variables

SVoldrich — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:18:50 GMT

Richard - Nope, they are all current addresses.

Re: counting variables

SVoldrich — Tue, 20 May 2014 13:19:58 GMT

I'll research that RW9 -

Not everything in that code makes sense to me, but I will research it...