topic Invalid argument to function ... in SAS Programming

Invalid argument to function ...

qinghe — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 04:55:11 GMT

Hi,

I have got the following information in the log:

NOTE: Invalid argument to function YRDIF at line 21 column 18.

NOTE: Invalid second argument to function SUBSTR at line 26 column 9.

NOTE: Invalid second argument to function SUBSTR at line 27 column 9.

The lines 21 to 27 ar as below:

21 age_at_131015 = yrdif(birth_date, '13oct2015'd, 'act/act');

22 if age_at_131015 <5 then age_grp="0-4";

23 else if age_at_131015 <15 then age_grp="5-14";

24 else age_group="15+";

25 if substr(Indigenous_status, 1, 1)="A" or substr(Indigenous_status, 1, 1)="T" then Indig=1;

26 else if substr(compress(Indigenous_status), 1, 4)="NOTA" then Indig=2;

27 else if substr(compress(Indigenous_status), 1, 4)="NOTS" then Indig=9;

What I did wrong?

Thanks.

qinghe

Re: Invalid argument to function ...

Reeza — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 05:04:10 GMT

Most likely you forgot to account for missing values.

Birth_date is probably missing, and indigineous status is less than 4 characters, or missing, so trying to take a substring of length 4 isn't possible.

If you look closer at your log, it will show sample data points and you can verify the value of birth_date and/or indigineous status to verify my guess.

Re: Invalid argument to function ...

qinghe — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 05:06:36 GMT

Thanks, Reeza