topic Re: Format question in SAS Programming

Format question

Alucard_L — Thu, 10 May 2018 03:13:00 GMT

If now I have a data like

obs x

1 1

2 0

3 0

4 1

5 0

Variable x is numeric. The format of x is 2.

if I want to convert 1 to 1.5, the output is like

obs x

1 2

2 0

3 0

4 2

5 0

Because SAS rounded 1.5 to 2 due to the format.

If I add a format statement like format x 1.1;

Then the output is like

obs x

1 1.5

2 0.0

3 0.0

4 1.5

5 0.0

My question is that how do I change the format to get a output like

obs x

1 1.5

2 0

3 0

4 1.5

5 0

and x is still a numeric value.

Thanks.

Re: Format question

kiranv_ — Thu, 10 May 2018 04:18:55 GMT

data a;
format val 2.1;
val = 1.5;
run;

data a;
format val 3.1;
val = 1.5;
run;

run above code. for example in 3.1 format 3 belongs to total length and 1 belong to number of decimals. so the format can display 1.5 accurately, with format 2.1 the total total length 2 is smaller than your value hence it rounds up

Re: Format question

Patrick — Thu, 10 May 2018 04:56:03 GMT

@Alucard_L

With numeric SAS formats and if you don't require something specific like thousand separators then normally not applying any format (which then uses default BEST32.) or a format of 32. returns normally what you want.

Only use the decimal bit in a format if you need the displayed values rounded to a certain precision and you want always to display the decimals, i.e. for 2 decimals after the comma 32.2 would do the job.