topic Re: Sum function statement generating exponential values in SAS Programming

Sum function statement generating exponential values

JasonNC — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 18:41:20 GMT

Hi,

proc sql;
create table snp as
select sum(Amount) as amt
from tbl
group by prdct
quit;

When i am summing the amount when the sum value is zero it's generating exponential value. what's causing the problem

I have amounts like below

Amount

208990.99

547244.6

91914.11

-208990.99

-91914.11

-547244.6

I used round function to overcome the problem but curious what caused the problem and using the round function appropriate solution?

This is what i used

proc sql;
create table snp as
select round(sum(Amount),0.01) as amt
from tbl
group by prdct
quit;

Re: Sum function statement generating exponential values

art297 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 18:52:00 GMT

My guess is that you're not getting Exponential values but, rather, large numbers being shown using scientific notation.

If so, rather than outputing the sums, output sum(amount)/1000000 and that way you wil get the sum of number of millions.

Art, CEO, AnalystFinder.com

Re: Sum function statement generating exponential values

Reeza — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:00:21 GMT

What @art297 said, but you're getting really small numbers - ie 2.4X10^-13 or something like that? This has to do with numerical precision and how SAS can store numbers. It's a common issue in programming across all languages and more of a binary computer issue. Until we get quantam 🙂

Re: Sum function statement generating exponential values

ballardw — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 19:43:14 GMT

And it may just be that the format is too small to display well.

data _null_;
   x=12345678;
   put x= best4.;
run;

Displays x as 12E6 because I told it display with only 4 columns. So the closest value SAS can display with 4 columns is the exponential.