topic Rename Variable with Space in SAS Programming

Rename Variable with Space

aminkarimid — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:27:11 GMT

Hello everybody;

I have existing dataset sampledata87_02 which has space in variables name like below;

Trade Date

Now I am trying to using this dataset and wants to rename all above variables... . How can I do that?

I am using this logic but its not working.

data sampledata87_02;
	set sampledata87_02;
	rename 
	'Trade Date'n=Trade_Date;
run;

The log is:

168  data sampledata87_02;
169      set sampledata87_02;
170      rename
171      'Trade Date'n=Trade_Date;
         -------------
         24
ERROR 24-322: Variable name is not valid.

172      run;

WARNING: The variable Trade Date in the DROP, KEEP, or RENAME list has never been referenced.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
WARNING: The data set WORK.SAMPLEDATA87_02 may be incomplete.  When this step was stopped there
         were 0 observations and 18 variables.
WARNING: Data set WORK.SAMPLEDATA87_02 was not replaced because this step was stopped.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.03 seconds
      cpu time            0.01 seconds

Thanks.

Re: Rename Variable with Space

ChrisHemedinger — Tue, 23 May 2017 17:31:57 GMT

Set:

Options VALIDVARNAME=ANY;

That's one of my subtopics in this blog post about downloading/converting files from the web.

Re: Rename Variable with Space

Reeza — Tue, 23 May 2017 19:38:37 GMT

Make sure you're seeing the variable name, not label.

The label likely has spaces but the variable name may be automatically converted to the underscore. Run a PROC CONTENTS to see the labels vs data set name.

Re: Rename Variable with Space

Gabrielle — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 19:35:04 GMT

Wow.. thanks so much for this! I was stuck on this for a while wondering why I kept getting the same error and turns out, my problem wasn't really a problem to begin with because SAS already put the underscores for me.