topic Re: Scrambling a SAS Dataset in SAS Programming

Scrambling a SAS Dataset

alan0101 — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 07:24:48 GMT

I have a dataset with 10 variables and 600k records. It is the end result of a number of preceding processes, and one of the effects of these processes is that the dataset is ordered by age. Is there a simple sas procedure which can be written to get rid of the sorting ? I don't want to do say 3 proc surveyselects and then put the datasets together again

Re: Scrambling a SAS Dataset

SASKiwi — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 07:53:51 GMT

This will order your data randomly:

data want;

set have;

scramble_var = ranuni(0);

run;

proc sort data = want;

by scramble_var;

run;

Re: Scrambling a SAS Dataset

RW9 — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 08:17:26 GMT

Hi,

Just for laughs, try proc whisk?

For the above, you could do in one step:

proc sql;

create table want as select * from sashelp.cars order by ranuni(0);

quit;

Also, I would ask why do you want to scramble the dataset. Generally ordered datasets would be easier to use, maybe you just need to change the order or retain original ordering:

data original;

set original;

ord=_n_;

run;

Then later on sort by _n_ to get it to the original sort.

Re: Scrambling a SAS Dataset

alan0101 — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:00:18 GMT

Great thanks SASKiwi !

Re: Scrambling a SAS Dataset

alan0101 — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:02:44 GMT

Also great thanks RW 9 ! I want to scramble the datasets so that the customers are not called in any predefined sequence or bias which is built in via the preceding datasteps